


An Apartment on the Edge of Queens

by FlippedScript



Series: Spider-Man's New York Tour (AU) [3]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: At least not after Ben died, F/M, Fangirl Michelle Jones, Humor, Identity Reveal, Mutual Pining, Peter Didn't go to Midtown, Secret Identity, Sexual Tension, Simultaneously Enemies and Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Some Social Media, Texting, You’ve heard of Enemies to Friends to Lovers, now get ready for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 24,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlippedScript/pseuds/FlippedScript
Summary: And okay, maybe she’ll feel safer in Queens more because of Spider-Man than anything, but she’s an adult now, she just passed the Bar exam and everything.  And, in Michelle’s eyes, being an adult means that she’s allowed to make a stupid decision or two.But that stupid decision is about nothing more than her safety, of course, and certainly not at all about the silly crush she had on Spider-man in high school. Spider-Man’s been active for nearly eight years now, so by her best guess, so he’s got to be what, in his mid-thirties by now? That’s definitely too old for Michelle, so really, the crush that she definitely doesn’t have would be stupid, anyways.In which Michelle Jones falls in love with the guy who sits on her fire escape at night, and gets to know the one who she's helping represent in her first ever paralegal case, and feelings make things very complicated.
Relationships: J. Jonah Jameson & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Michelle Jones & Karen Page, Michelle Jones & Matt Murdock, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Spider-Man's New York Tour (AU) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557637
Comments: 188
Kudos: 463





	1. Meeting

Michelle doesn’t know why she decided to keep living in Queens, even though her new job is notably not in Queens.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. She’s spent pretty much her whole life in Queens, barring the few years she spent at Columbia, and she doesn’t exactly want to live elsewhere, closer to her job or not. 

Michelle likes Queens, after all. She likes the way that Stan at the hot dog cart knows her order (one hot dog for now and one to go, with just ketchup and mustard because okay, she’s a little boring), and how the coffee shop by her old apartment offers a new type of tea every month. 

Of course, as user _u/NotNamedMolly_ , known as a top source of the legality of vigilante activity on the _r/NYCHeroes_ subreddit, she has another reason to stay in Queens: Spider-Man has finally hit his stride, and she’ll be damned if she misses a thing by living anywhere other than the area she grew up in.

And okay, maybe she’ll feel safer in Queens more because of Spider-Man than anything, but she’s an adult now, she just passed the Bar exam and everything. And, in Michelle’s eyes, being an adult means that she’s allowed to make a stupid decision or two. 

But that stupid decision is about nothing more than her safety, of course, and certainly not at all about the silly crush she had on Spider-man in high school. Spider-Man’s been active for nearly eight years now, so by her best guess, so he’s got to be what, in his mid-thirties by now? That’s definitely too old for Michelle, so really, the crush that she definitely doesn’t have would be stupid, anyways. 

And so, down payment paid and security deposit deposited (Michelle Jones can adult with the best of them, she swears), she begins to unpack her things. Fortunately, the boxes are already scattered in the front room of the small apartment: Michelle had paid for her cheap furniture to be moved inside with them, and everything. See? Adulting. As such, Michelle promptly ignored the scattered boxes in favor of making herself dinner and preparing for work the next day. After dinner came unpacking, which was fortunately quick - probably the only advantage that came with being a broke college student. 

As Michelle made her way back out to the kitchen area, she couldn’t help but appreciate the view it had. It wasn’t a great one - it was partially obstructed by a billboard, it was quiet and peaceful, and for some reason, Michelle found herself making her way out into the cold night air, an old coffee cup filled with tea in one hand, and a newly purchased copy of _The Walls Around Us_ in the other. 

Michelle was partially through the first chapter, rereading a paragraph she particularly like when a teasing voice jolted her from her thoughts. 

“A coffee? For me?” It asked from above her, painfully recognizable to any Queens native. Even so, Michelle felt surprised when she looked up because oh, it actually was Spider-Man. Any New York native could recognize the suit, of course, but with cosplayers and pranksters, it was harder to be completely sure. The man above Michelle, however, was definitely the real deal. Somehow, Michelle realized, this was the first time she had ever really seen him in person

“Not coffee, and not exactly for you,” she snarked almost shouting up the three stories Spider-man was above her, before lifting the steaming cup to her own lips. “I need my own caffeine tonight.”

Spider-Man seemed to shrug at that, and began to walk down the side of the building towards her. “I don’t drink coffee, anyways, I’m more of a tea drinker myself. Mind if I sit with you?” He asked carefully. 

“Be my guest,” she shrugged, feigning a lack of interest. “Why no coffee? Bad for your spidery self?” 

Spider-Man huffed out a laugh at that, and Michelle hid another smile behind a sip of her drink. 

“Got it in one, Miss...” the creases in the mask shift, and Michelle can tell from the shape that he was smiling. At least, she thought so.

Michelle was a fairly boring name, and this was _Spider-Man_ she was taking to. For some reason (and that reason is definitely not being her high school crush), Michelle felt like she needed to be cooler than that. “My friends call me MJ,” she heard herself say, before she could really think better of it. Belatedly, Michelle realized that she hadn’t gone by MJ since junior high, and it wasn’t like she had any close friends to call her that currently, anyways. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Em Jay,” Spider-Man says, smiling beneath his mask. He seems unaware of her internal crises as he offers her a hand, and so Michelle takes it, and shakes it gently. She can’t help but be impressed that the a man known to be able to catch busses doesn’t crush her hand. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mister...” she trailed off. 

To his credit, Spider-Man didn’t even stumble to answer. “You and I both know I can’t answer that,” he laughed. “But you can call me Mr. Man, or Spidey”. 

Suddenly, Spider-Man seemed to perk up, and tilted his head, frowning. 

“It’s been a pleasure, but I’ve got to go...” he trailed off. “Spidery things to do, you know how it is,” Michelle didn’t know the specifics of course, but she nodded anyways. It was only polite, she figured.

“Helping old ladies cross at the street?” She teased. 

Spider-Man paused before he swung off, looking back at her as he pointed one hand towards the apartment building across the intersection, “I wish, definitely something a little more sinister, but nothing your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man can’t handle. I can tell you have questions for me, mind if I _swing_ back around tomorrow to answer them?” He asked, already turning towards the nearby intersection. 

Michelle went to smother her grin with another sip of tea, only to find it distressingly empty. 

“Works for me,” she confirmed to the open air, watching as Spider-Man gave what looked like a thumbs up and a holler as he swung over a taxi cab, and off into the night. 


	2. Work

Michelle was giddy as she walked to work the next day: yesterday, she was talking to Spider-Man on her fire escape, and today she would be starting her first ever day on the job as a legal assistant. 

It wasn’t the most glamorous (and certainly wasn’t the most high paying) position she could have taken after law school, but that had never been her goal as a law student to begin with. 

Instead, she wanted to work to help people, and her sights had been squarely set on working at Nelson and Murdock, due to their impressive amounts of pro-bono work, and the fact that they were on the forefront of Vigilante law. 

Vigilante law had been what drew Michelle towards law in the first place even, back when she had scoured r/NYCHeroes in an attempt to understand exactly what kind of legal situation Spider-Man fell into. (As it turned out, he was breaking a decent number of laws, but not nearly as many as she had first expected). 

Now, thanks to what was soon to be a decade of experience, _u/NotNamedMolly_ was a titan in those very same discussion threads, and Michelle was known online for her expert analysis, along with her snark. She, along with _u/BannersEighthPHD_ and _u/AirToSigh_ were considered the experts in the fields of vigilante Law, Ethics, and Technology, respectively. And more than that, being an online presence was Michelle’s own way of changing the world, just like explaining the ethics of not killing villains and maintaining secret identities was _u/BannersEighthPHD_ ’s superpower, and explaining the science behind vigilante gear was _u/AirToSigh_ ’s. 

Of course, it was her own online work that had garnered Nelson and Murdock’s attention in the first place. In addition to her standard, copy-paste able cover letter, Michelle had written nearly a full page detailing why she was interested at working at a firm like Nelson and Murdock’s, and layout out proof of her identity. 

As she had arrived outside the building that housed her new place of work, Michelle paused her audiobook and took a deep breath, before stepping up to the door and knocking.

It was Foggy who answered the door for her - a fact that was hardly a surprise as his partner at law was blind, before offering her a breakfast taco, which she practically inhaled. 

“Thank you, Mr Nelson,” Michelle said as she threw the foil in the trash, and took a seat at the small table next to Karen Page, who, even at this ungodly hour, looked composed and awake. Talk about goals. 

“Please, we’re friends now, Michelle, call me Foggy,” Mr. Nelson, er, Foggy smiled. And dear god, was Michelle already charmed. 

“My friends call me MJ,” Michelle said, deciding aloud, before pointing a finger at Karen, indicating that she expected her to do the same. She pointed her finger at Matt as well, before deciding that was probably rude, because of the whole, well, blind thing. 

Karen laughed, and offered a delicate hand. “It’s good to finally meet you, MJ. Matt and Foggy are both huge fans of your work, and I am too, at least, of the parts I can understand.”

Michelle smiled back, surprised that it felt only a little plastic. There was something homely about the office space - whether it was the way that Matt and Foggy left their doors open, or the way that the firm’s name had been scribbled and replaced by “Nelson, Murdock, and Page” on the fancy whiteboard calendar that was on the wall, she felt more at home here more than she had just about anywhere. She decided she liked the feeling. 

Mr. Murdock hadn’t risen from his desk yet, and Michelle watched in awe as Foggy murmured softly to him, and coaxed the blind man to stand. 

“Ah, I’m sorry, I’ve been rude,” Matt said, smiling as effortlessly as Karen and Foggy had. Huh. There must be something in the water, or maybe in that delicious taco. He held out his hand which Michelle shook, and moved his hand back to his cane. “Feel free to call me Matt, MJ.” 

“Is there, uh, anything I should be working on, today?” Michelle asked, somewhat surprised she hadn't been briefed already.

Matt seemed to perk up at that. “Yea, actually. We have a client meeting this afternoon, but for now, we don’t really need anything from you, so feel free to keep yourself otherwise occupied, and let us know if you need anything."

Foggy nodded at this. “Oh - and before I forget, feel free to bring whatever you want to decorate your space, as long as it’s work appropriate. We really do want you to feel comfortable. And let us know if there’s anything you need?” 

Michelle thanked both Matt and Foggy, at least two or three times more than necessary, and began to set her things up. Really, she didn’t need too much, but she did set up an extra laptop charger that she had bought specifically for work, along with a legal pad and a few nicer pens, before opening up her computer itself. Michelle was able to get her official email and access to Nelson and Murdock’s shared Google Drive set up easily, but quickly found herself distracted. Assuming Spider-Man was telling the truth, she would need to have something interesting to ask him, after all. 

With that, Michelle scrolled through her chats before finding the one she wanted, noting that _u/AirToSigh_ was online, as normal. As far as she could tell, the man hadn’t been offline, ever. 

_NotNamedMolly: If you could ask Spider-Man one question, what would it be?_

_AirToSigh: Aside from the formula for his webbing and his identity? No clue._

Michelle had a feeling that this would have been AirToSigh’s response, but it didn’t hurt to check.

_NotNamedMolly: Hah. You and I both know he’d never tell anyone either of those. Got nothing better?_

_AirToSigh: Nah. Why, you still daydreaming about Spidey?_

_NotNamedMolly: If I cared enough, I’d paste the eye-roll emoji here._

Michelle frowned, and rolled her eyes. AirToSigh seemed determined to somehow get her and Spider-Man together, or, at the very least, relentlessly tease her about her old crush. And yes, Michelle was mature enough to admit that she had once had a crush on Spider-Man, but she didn’t anymore.

_NotNamedMolly: Seriously though, if I wanted to learn more about the guy, where would I start?_

_AirToSigh: He’s said in interviews before that the comics are actually a pretty good take on his life, you could start there?_

_NotNamedMolly: Damn, and here I thought I could avoid those cash grabs for the rest of my life_

_AirToSigh: You still could, if I got over that crush I didn’t see you deny_

At that, Michelle simply huffed, and closed the browser tab. She really should be trying to get ready for whatever that afternoon’s meeting covered, and stop thinking about Spider-Man. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more of a worldbuilding and filled chapter, but I hope people still enjoy it! I wonder if anyone can figure out who _u/BannersEighthPHD_ and _u/AirToSigh_ are? 
> 
> As always, Comments and Kudos mean much more than you think!


	3. Reunion

All things considered, lunch time came much faster than Michelle expected, and Karen herded a distracted Matt and Foggy out the door, with a fond “boys” and some grumbled threats. Michelle was the first one out the door, but still followed the pair as they made their way to a mom and pop diner a few blocks away. 

Foggy and Matt chatted idly on the way, apparently some of Matt's friends from an older job were looking to reach back out, something that Foggy didn't seem to be too pleased about. There were reports of Spider-Man swinging a few blocks east, in Times Square, a feat which neither Matt nor Foggy seemed to care too much about. Seeing as how often Michelle knew Nelson and Murdock represented clients like Spider-Man or Daredevil, she shouldn't have been surprised. 

Once they arrived at the restaurant Michelle was not at all surprised by the choice - it looked just as homely as Nelson and Murdock’s law office felt, complete with plants and succulents by the large windows. Michelle didn’t miss the pull-down gates by the windows though, a stark reminder that Hell’s Kitchen was still not the safest place to live. Daredevil was known as a hero, of course, but between him and Spider-Man as the only heroes in New York city, there was only so much that could be done. 

“We normally do bring food from home, but we wanted to treat you on your first day,” Foggy explained, offering Matt his elbow as he led him to take a seat on the inside of the booth. Michelle took the other booth, and glanced at the menu. 

Foggy waved someone over just as Michelle was finishing off salad, and gestured for her to scoot over to make room. Michelle slid her plate towards the window dutifully, and looked up at their new table-mate. 

He wore a slightly stained “I don’t trust atoms, they make up everything” shirt, and smiled when he saw Matt and Foggy. The problem was, Michelle _knew_ him. 

As Foggy soon clarified, that someone was indeed Peter Parker, who Michelle was _not_ happy to see. Michelle hasn’t minded him much for most of the year, even for his weird obsession with Stark Industries, but after he missed decathlon nationals, and, truth be told, cost them the championship, Michelle was not a fan of his. 

A fan of his or not, though, Peter Parker was definitely standing at the head of the table right now, and Michelle didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he was hot now. 

“This is Miss Michelle Jones, she’ll joining Nelson and Murdock for the time being,” Foggy introduced, and Michelle was forced to pay attention again, pulled from her thoughts. 

Parker’s eyes definitely lingered on Michelle for a few seconds longer than she expected, and she was proud that she didn’t flush. 

“I remember Miss Jones from high school, though I’m not sure that she remembers me,” Parker said, as if he had no idea that Michelle wasn’t a big fan of his. 

Last she had heard, Parker had dropped out local high school too, and had dual enrolled in a community college, somehow only taking online classes. Why Matt and Foggy knew Parker though, Michelle has no idea. It was probably due to his habit of taking pictures of Spider-Man (a habit which had led to nearly a hundred unexcused absences in the second half of freshman year, not that Michelle had been keeping track). 

“I remember you surprisingly well for someone who was absent so often, Parker,” Michelle snarks, before she can think better of it. _professional setting Michelle, professional setting_ she reminds herself, taking a sip of water through her metal straw. 

The thing is, Michelle still blames Peter for their second place at academic decathlon nationals their freshman year, seeing as he had dropped out of school with literally no explanation

Peter Parker snorted at that and shook his head, before looking over at Murdock and Nelson. “We’ll still be meeting this afternoon, Matt, Foggy?” He asked, with a familiarity that made Michelle’s stomach churn. Parker knew her bosses, clearly definitely better than she did, and she had just insulted him in front of them. Not a good look. 

Fortunately, Parker left after a few pleasantries, and Michelle was able to look up from her very interesting food. 

“If you don’t mind me asking,” She tried, “how do you know Parker?”

“We got him emancipated,” Matt said with a shit-eating grin as he ignored a sharp elbow from Foggy. 

Foggy laughed at that, before cutting in. “We did, after his uncle died. His aunt was too sickly to take care of him, and he ended up having to get emancipated so he could work full time.”

“That was right around his Freshman year, if I recall,” Matt added, a devilish smirk indicating that he knew exactly what he reminding Michelle of. “We helped him out pro bono, and he’s been a friend of the firm ever since. He helps us boomers out with technology troubles, for the most part, but he has a unique defense case to share with us this afternoon”

And just like that, it sounds like Peter Parker is going to be the first legal client Michelle ever has the displeasure of working with. Isn’t that just her luck. 

“What about?” Michelle asks, because she can’t think of who Parker would ever be sued by, aside from potential Spider-Man. “Does Spider-Man wants to sue him for all those pictures or something?” She says, half joking. 

“You’ll see, MJ,” Foggy says, like that explains everything. Maybe it does, really, but Matt seems to laugh, and it's the first time Michelle has every heard him do so, she realizes.

Either way, the whole not liking her first ever legal client is something she's going to have to live with, no matter who she is helping defend him from. Professionalism and all that, after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about this chapter taking so long to get posted. I do technically have a backlog of content, but it's taking me a while to really flesh out the plot how I want it, and real life is busy. 
> 
> I'm conflicted about having MJ not like Peter as much as she likes Spider-Man, seeing as one of the things I like most about Spideychelle is the fact that MJ almost seems to prefer Peter to Spider-Man, and her crushing on him pre-powers is about as close to canon as things like that can be. 
> 
> That said, the enemies and friends at the same time dynamic is going to be a lot of fun, so I hope it'll be worth it.
> 
> Any predictions on what Peter's legal matter involves?
> 
> Come yell at me on tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/flippedscript16


	4. Case

The thing was, Michelle did feel bad about what she said to Peter, even before Foggy explained that his Uncle has died. It was just that she also remembered being so frustrated when they placed second in Nationals, and no one had been able to live up to Parker’s science acumen well enough to lead them back to a top ten nationals finish.

The walk back was nearly silent, though, which felt oppressive and uncomfortable, despite Michelle’s personal preference for quiet. Foggy led Matt across each street, muttering quiet instructions as they let cars go by, and Michelle was left a few paces behind them.

Karen clearly read the mood as the trio entered the office, and glared at Foggy. “Spill,” she said, more of an order then a question. 

“MJ and Parker have history,” Foggy said, which felt a little misleading. Sure, Parker was cute, but they hadn’t ever done anything, especially with how hung up he had been on Liz.

“I offended him. Said some fairly rude shit to him, and the last time we spoke his uncle was still around,” Michelle spoke up, if only to save Foggy the pain of explaining.

Karen pursed her lips. “Well, I think an apology would go a long way,” she said, before taking a long sip of water.

That was... fair enough, really. From what Michelle could remember, Parker was the type to accept an apology, especially if it was genuine. Michelle’s thoughts were interrupted by three knocks on the door, which Karen hurried to answer.

“That’ll be Pete now,” Karen said, heels clacking as she made her way to the door. She opened in quickly, revealing Peter Parker in his same dorky tee shirt, but suspiciously sweaty.

“Michelle,” Karen prompted as she shut the door behind Peter, “will you show Peter the way to Matt’s office? I think you’ll have to grab an extra chair, also,” she added, and Michelle was more and more sure that Karen was the real person in charge of Nelson and Murdock, despite her title as secretary.

As such, Michelle and Peter did as they were told, and Michelle muttered an awkward “sorry about earlier” as they entered Matt’s office.

Parker gave her the same smile she expected, and brushed off her apology. “I know you didn’t mean too much by it, and I’ll be the first to admit that I was an awful teammate back then.” 

Foggy clapped his hands, and effortlessly began their actual legal meeting. As it turned out, Parker had managed to record Jameson, his employer, asking for pictures that could be used to implicate Spider-Man for murder.

Parker wanted to publish these online, but wanted to make sure that he was legally in the clear to do so.

As New York was a “one party consent” state for recording conversations, the meeting was mostly a formality, along with a way for Peter to confirm that he could count on their help (Pro Bono, Matt assured him, blind to Foggy’s glare) if the Bugle tried to seek legal action.

How Nelson and Murdock could afford to work so many cases Pro Bono was beyond MJ, but so long as they kept paying her, she didn’t really mind. 

Peter said that he would release the recording that evening, and that that he would keep them in the loop if anything happened. He gave all three of them a smile as the left the office, already looking at his phone as he jogged out the front door.

Spider-Man was seen fighting Electro shortly thereafter, but that wasn’t the biggest Spider-Man news of the evening. Parker’s audio recordings, uploaded to both Soundcloud and YouTube went viral, spurred on even further when the daily bugle tweeted an ill advised “I’ll see you in court! -JJJ”. 

* * *

Michelle had a whole plan as to the types of questions she was going to ask. She didn’t want to bring up the potential of the Parker case, (Spider-Man would probably not know anything about it, anyways) but she had literally dozens of questions she had wanted to ask Spider-Man for years now, and she actually could.

The questions MJ was prepared to ask were typed, sorted, categorized, and planned to a tee. Of course, she got giddy as soon as she heard the footsteps on the roof above her, and Michelle’s curiosities and interest in meme culture betrayed her better instincts.

”Does the president have a Spidey-phone?” Michelle asked the open sky, holding out a cup of tea as a peace offering. “A Spidey-signal?”

Spider-Man seemed to laugh at the questions, but didn’t move to immediately leave. Seeing as how rude her questions were, Michelle figured that alone was a small victory then and there. 

Instead, he walked slowly down the side of the building, and gently took the cup of tea from Michelle’s hand. “Are you gonna post what I say online?” He asked carefully.

Michelle frowned at the non-sequitur, but answered anyways. “Nah, I’m just curious.”

Spider-Man seems to accept that response, at least. “Alright, I trust you.” He says, and Michelle decides to ignore how her heart skips a beat at those simple words. “I can tell you that the president has a way to contact me, and that it doesn’t involve a Spider-Signal. Much more than that, I’ll leave you to guess.”

“Did you see the Bugle leak?” Michelle asked next. It was a stupid question - Spider-Man would have to live under a rock not to have seen anything about it, but it was a good enough icebreaker.

Spider-Man simply hummed. “Mmhm. What’s the tea, today?”

Michelle took a sip of hers, and answered Spider-Man’s question quickly, eyes narrowed. (The tea was chamomile.) It was a fairly dodgy answer to a simple question. “Well, something’s up with you.” She prodded. “You didn’t actually kill anyone, did you?”

Spider-Man sighed. “No, it’s just that...” he sighed, drawing out a breath.

“Just that what?” Michelle asked.

“It was easier when people didn’t all know who I am, is all,” and well, that didn’t make much sense.For some reason, everyone in her life seemed to be speaking in riddles, these days.

Spider-Man nudged Michelle’s knee, pulling her from her thoughts, before pointing at the book in her lap. “Fahrenheit 451?” He asked.

“I’ve read it before, but Bradbury makes some excellent points about the media, and it felt topical,” MJ explained. “Plus”, she said, smirking as he pulled a match off of the cover and striking it against the side, “it’s relatively fun.”

Spider-Man smirked at the last bit, and pinched the match to extinguish it. “Read Harrison Bergeron, if you haven’t. I bet you’ll like it”

MJ had already read it, as part of an elective class her second semester at Empire State, but she nodded anyway. “Same time next week?” She asked, praying she didn’t sound too hopeful

“Sure, MJ. I’ll see you next week.” Spider-Man agreed, and swung off into the streets of Queens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this took so long! I should have another chapter in the next few days


	5. Twitter

**ABC News** _@abc_ • 3h

This evening Peter Parker, a freelance photographer known for his pictures of Spider-Man released audio recordings of James Jameson, Editor in Chief of the Daily Bugle requesting photos that would make it look like Spider-Man was a murderer.

 **Sparker Fan Acct** _@spideyparkerfan_ • 3h

Spider-Man had to fight Electro (again) today, too! At least Parker’s finally standing up for his man, though!

 **Spider Man isn’t gay lmao** _@sparkerisntreal_ • 3h

Spider Man isn’t into dudes, get out of here with that bull

 **Respect the hyphen** _@thehyphenbot_ • 2h

Spider-Man really does get no respect for the hyphen, does he?

(I am a bot)

 **Sparker Fan Acct** _@spideyparkerfan_ • 2h

Do I even need to respond after that beat down? If I did, just know that Miguel O’Hara, who Spider-Man has said is a lot like him, canonically had a husband in the Morales comics.

**Jessica Jones > Spider-Man** _@ameteurdetective_ • 2h

For real though can we talk about how Peter Parker went from taking pictures of Spider-Man for like, 8 years only to flip out on JJJ for some reason. Seems weird to me. 🔎

**NYC HeroNews** _@heronewsnyc_ • 1h

Leaked audio from a daily bugle meeting indicates that their editor in chief JJ Jameson intended to publish fake news implicating Spider-Man for murder. The Daily Bugle could not be reached for comment.

 **Kayla Loves Spider-Man** _@kaylaofhyrule_ • 58m ago

Miles had to fight electro today, and then this? Poor guy.

 **NBA Star Spidey** _@spiderballertheorist_ • 55m ago

Dude, Miles is the fictional name for Spider-Man, not his real name

 **Just another stan acct** _@spiderfan1678_ • 44m ago

I know that, but a lot of Spider-Man fans use the name Miles to refer to Spider-Man’s civilian identity, because of the comic character.

**Spider-Man knows my name** _@flashthompson_yt_ • 2h

Check out my #buglegate reaction video on YouTube! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1140002)

**The Daily Bugle** 📯 _@thedailybugle_ • 2h

Parker, I’ll see you in court!

-JJJ

 **The Daily Beagle** 🐶 _@thedailybeagle_ • 2h

Here’s a photo of a beagle.

[A photo of a beagle]

 **Code it in Rust** _@nedwardleeds_ • 1h

Honestly this bot always makes my day

 **Once gave Spidey a waffle** @abebrown • 1h

Dude, you made that bot...

 **Code it in Rust** _@nedwardleeds_ • 1h

And?

**Spider-Man** 🕷🕸 _@nycwebslinger_ • 53m

Thanks to everyone who has let me know that they support me as this news comes to light. (1/?)

 **Spider-Man** 🕷🕸 _@nycwebslinger_ • 53m

In the interest of transparency, I admit that I have had to kill before. It is a disgusting act that I never want or plan to do but it is something that I had to do based on extreme circumstances. (2/?)

 **Spider-Man** 🕷🕸 _@nycwebslinger_ • 53m

After I did so, I reported the situation to law enforcement officers in order to ensure that I was acting within the law. (It was, and suit camera footage proved my actions were justified) (3/?)

 **Spider-Man** 🕷🕸 _@nycwebslinger_ • 53m

I am appalled that people would choose to spread misinformation in order to disparage others, but I have faith that the people of New York will rise above this type of behavior. (4/?)

 **Spider-Man** 🕷🕸 _@nycwebslinger_ • 52m

If you want to do something to help support me, please instead support media groups that are committed to bringing people the truth. (5/5)

 **NYC For Spideyman** 🗽🕸 _@officialspiderfanclub_ • 48m

We love you, Spidey! Know that the people of New York stand behind you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to try this format out, seeing as twitter fics and social media interaction is always something I love to see.
> 
> And yes, Mile Morales does exist as a fictional character in this universe: Spider-Man's status as the only well known public facing hero has lead to him getting a comic book.


	6. Apologies

Michelle woke up disturbingly well rested the next day, which would be a good thing if not for the fact that her phone informed her that it was 11:37am. Ouch. Her alarm clock read that it was 3:56pm, which, come to think of it, was probably Electro’s fault, somehow. That was something to keep in mind for the future, at least, for the next time Electro somehow broke out of Riker’s.

Fortunately, Karen had texted her earlier that morning and let her know that she could take the day off, as Matt and Foggy couldn’t make it into work either. That, at least, was a relief. 

It was only after she had showered and gotten ready that Michelle realized just how badly she needed coffee. And food. Moving had been Michelle’s priority, and her fridge was noticeably empty.

Promising herself that she would get around to grocery shopping that afternoon, Michelle pulled on her shoes and pulled on her headphones, heading towards q cafe she had seen on her walk to work the day before.

It was full. For whatever reason there were dozens of people in line, a disproportionate number of them in Spider-Man shirts.

“Michelle!” A louder voice pierced the air, and MJ turned to see that it was Peter Parker sitting at one of the tables, waving her over. He wore a shirt that just read “Bacteria: it’s the only culture some people have”, and Michelle had to hold back a laugh.

Michele resigned herself to get yelled at by him (which was well deserved, with her outburst), and sat down quickly, ignoring the complaints of those in line.

“Spider-Man got a coffee here this morning,” Parker said, gesturing towards one of the many Spidey shirt wearing people in line. 

“And you’re here to what, take pictures?” Michelle snapped, before pausing.

“Sorry. I uh,” she said, halting. “I’m sorry about yesterday, too, I just...” she trailed off, trying to find the words. Peter, for his part, shrugged.

“It’s alright, Michelle. I understand that me ditching the team was rude of me, but I wasn’t in a very good place,” Peter said, all of the earnestness that Michelle has always thought was fake clearly there.

“It’s okay...” MJ tried, only to be cut off.

“My Aunt May was uh, she got cancer. We needed money... a lot of money to help her get treatment, and my Uncle had just died,” Peter explained, and _oh_ , Michelle felt even worse now. “She’s okay now, a medical miracle, really.” Parker hastened to explain, as if that made things much better. 

“The pictures of Spider-Man were to pay for treatment, weren’t they?” Michelle asked, still processing.

“My Uncle’s life insurance wouldn’t pay out until I got Matt to help out, so yeah,” Peter affirmed, picking at his blueberry muffin. “I’ve always felt that when I could do something, I uh, needed to. Academics they well, they fell by the wayside,” Parker explained.  
“I ended up taking some online courses through horizon, and then I was able to go to Empire State. I’ll be graduating with a Masters in Biochemistry this semester, if all goes well.”

“I uh, I really do think I owe you an apology, then,” MJ said, stealing a muffin from the plate in front of her with a muttered “I’ll pay.”

“I misjudged you, for a while now, and I think that most people who know that you take pictures of Spider-Man are doing the same,” Michelle said, quiet.

Parker just shrugged. “That’s alright, they can think what they want. What have you been to to, Captain Jones?” Parker asked with a grin.

“I’ve been doing paralegal work at Nelson and Murdock for.... 28ish hours, now?” Michelle said, pretending to check her watch for the sake of it. “As far as I know, they brought me in because of my posts about vigilante law online,” she explained.

Parker nodded. “Would I have read your work? I’m relatively active in the online community myself, actually.”

“Maybe. It’s all legally oriented,” she began, before Parker cut her off.

“MJ. You’re NotNamedMolly, aren’t you?” Parker asked, snapping his fingers like he just solved a major mystery. Parker dug out his phone at that, tapping at it frantically.

“Yep. Think I’d know your na-“ Michelle stooped, interrupted as her phone buzzed once, and then again a few more times in rapid succession.

Four texts stared back at her. 

_ u/BannersEighthPHD: Nice to put a face to the username_

_ u/BannersEighthPHD: Yes, this is Peter by the way_

_ u/BannersEighthPHD: Please don’t post who I am._

_ u/BannersEighthPHD: :)) _

_ u/NotNamedMolly: I won’t. _

Michelle flicked some water at Parker, who seemed undisturbed as he put his phone away.

“You mean to tell me that, you, Peter Parker, the photographer that most consider to be the only person who knows Spider-Man’s identity, are one of the biggest supporters of secret identities online?” Michelle asked, using her trademark decathlon captain _are you kidding me?_ voice. 

Peter, for his part, just shrugged. “You’ve been posting legal essays since your Junior year of high school, so you’re one to talk.”

“Please, Spider-Man journalism among young people isn’t exactly uncommon,” Michelle volleyed back. “Betty and Ned’s article was started junior year as well,” she pointed out.

“The one that said Spider-Man was probably as smart as Tony Stark or Bruce Banner?” Parker asked, like he didn’t believe that claim in particular.

“I told them to leave that claim out, but that’s the one,” Michelle confirmed, nearly laughing now. “Small world, huh?” she asked.

Parker just grinned. “You have no idea. I think I’m gonna have to head out, though. feel free to shoot me a message,” Peter said, leaving a twenty on the table as he got up to leave.

* * *

One grocery run and four unpacked boxes later, Michelle started up her laptop and went straight to rereading Parker’s post history. It wasn’t that she expected to find anything weird - most accounts that discussed heroes at all only visited hero based (and sometimes political) subs - but she was still curious if knowing who posted these things would affect how she read them. 

_NotNamedMolly: Am I the only one rereading posts, now? _

_BannersEighthPHD: I reread some of your stuff earlier today, but I have a lot going on right now. _

_BannersEighthPHD: You find anything too interesting? _

_NotNamedMolly: Nah, not really. _

Michelle hadn’t, really, but she did find some interesting things. Parker cared a _lot_ about the sanctity of s secret identity, and had complex thoughts about the ethics of superheroes making money. He did sum those up quite nicely in one post though, a while ago, where he argued that “so long as a vigilante’s sources of income are unbiased, and are not tied to choosing who to act for and when to act, some semblance of payment seems fair.”

It was a statement that Michelle could get behind, although it was weird to imagine what type of unbiased sources of income Parker was thinking of. Discussions of community’s paying a lump sum to someone like Spider-Man or Daredevil rubbed MJ the wrong way, after all.

* * *

It took almost five hours for Michelle to finish reading all of what Parker had posted, and shedidn’t see the mega thread in the main r/NYCHeroes sub until it was almost an hour old:

**Injured Spider-Man spotted swinging through Times Square, towards Queens**


	7. Injury

Michelle knew that Spider-Man would likely be swinging past her apartment on his way to whatever place he called safe, seeing as she was on the border between Queens and Midtown, nearly on the East River itself. And sue her, she wanted to see Spider-Man.

Using her phone like a pair of binoculars, Michelle made her way to the fire escape. The zoom slider on her camera was all the way to the right, which admittedly helped very little. She did eventually spot Spider-Man though, as he swung by her apartment and further down the street before realizing that _oh_. He was very, very bloody.

Spider-Man was probably okay though, seeing as he was at least swinging back into queens, Michelle decided. Said opinion was quickly overturned, however, as she saw Spider-Man slowly climbing down the side of her building, angling towards the fire escape. He had something strapped to his back: it looked like a sword, but it was bent twice, probably by Spider-Man himself.

“Hey MJ,” the vigilante groaned, finally placing his feet onto a solid horizontal surface as he finished lowering himself down the wall. “You mind if I use your bathroom, maybe a first aid kit?”

Michelle nodded wordlessly, moving out of the window to let Spider-Man in. “Thanks,” Spider-Man mumbled, one hand covering his shoulder as he hobbled his way inside.

“The bathroom is uh, this way,” Michelle stuttered, thrown off by how relaxed Spider-Man seemed about the whole ordeal. He had clearly been hurt by a sword, after all.

Spider-Man followed quickly, peeling off the top layer of the suit to reveal a black exercise shirt beneath it, which was also bloodied. “Sorry about the mess,” Spider-Man murmured, wetting a paper towel in the sink before dabbing it against his shoulder.

Next he grabbed a strip of gauze from who-knows-where, quickly webbing it over the bruise to stop the flow of blood. It had taken less than a minute for Spider-Man to do all of this, MJ realized, and it looked incredibly well practiced, all done with the mask still on. 

In the meantime the sword (yes Spider-Man had strapped a bent sword to his back like it and big deal) clattered to the ground, it’s polished metal glinting in the light, barring the part that was covered in dried blood.

“You still need that first aid kit?” Michelle asked, doing the best she could to look over Spider-Man’s injuries without throwing up.

“Nah, this’ll be all healed up in a few hours or so either way. It isn’t nearly as deep as I thought. Thanks, though,” Spider-Man replied, still far more casual about his own health than Michelle would like. It seemed clear that he did have a healing factor, though, something that most of the comics and popular theorists were in consensus about.

“You’re used to treating your wounds like this,” Michelle said, her tone far more accusatory than she intended.

Spider-Man shrugged, wincing as he flexed his shoulder. “I got hurt more when I was younger, but yea. A guy surprised me while I was trying to interrogate him. Sword.”

That explained the cut, yes, but it was still weird for MJ to see Spider-Man like this. The rational part of her brain knew, of course, that Spider-Man would get hurt sometimes. It was different seeing it in person, though, and smelling of copper scent of blood in her bathroom.

“What does an interrogation from Spider-Man look like, anyways?” Michelle asked, watching as Spider-Man worked to clean up the drops of blood on her floor.

Spider-Man laughed softly. “Well this time I was trying the Daredevil approach, which didn’t work out quite right. I’m gonna have to ask a friend why, but I have a hunch that I don’t like at all.”

Spider-Man stood back up at that, searching for a trash can for the wadded up towel. “Typically though, I hang the guy by his ankles and ask if he’d ever met someone who didn’t answer my question. If that doesn’t scare the pants off of him, we go for a walk up the side of a building. Chances are I won’t drop ‘em.”

“That’s uh,” Michelle frowned. “A little bit less PG than I expected,” she said, comparing the idea of Spider-Man dropping someone from a skyscraper to... she wasn’t sure what she expected. He was known to be ridiculously non-violent for a vigilante, and some believed he had never even killed.

Spider-Man shrugged. “I mean, if that person knows where a weapons or child trafficking ring is located, I don’t feel much of a need to stay PG.”

That was fair enough, Michelle decided. “What’s the Daredevil method?” She asked, suddenly far more interested in interrogation methods than she had been since high school.

Spider-Man snorted. “You don’t know his identity?” He asked, like that mattered.

“No, should I?” Michelle volleyed back.

Spider-Man didn’t seem sure if she should, but continued nonetheless. “He hits the guy, then asks what he wants to know. Rinse and repeat until they tell the truth.”

Well, Michelle thought. That’s a way to go about things. “And that didn’t work so well?”

Spider-Man laughed. “Nah. Not this time. Hence the sword.”

Yeah, MJ had at least put that together. “You gonna be okay?” She asked, watching as Spider-Man finished taping himself up, pulling his suit back over his shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. I should be all healed up by tonight. Which is good, cause Double D and Iron Fist are gonna need some help.”

Michelle knew of Daredevil, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Jessica Jones, but that was it as far as vigilante (none of them liked the title of hero) types. “Iron Fist being?” Michelle prompted.

“Not a name you heard from me.” Spider-Man squeaked, putting his hand over his lips and pretending to lock them. The fact that there were more was much like the fact that Spider-Man could get hurt. Not surprising, of course, but enough to throw her off guard.

“I do have to go, unfortunately. I’ll do my best to swing by tomorrow, hopefully without any swords.” Spider-Man promised. 

“I’ll see you then,” Michelle smiled, watching as Spider-Man climbed out the window. “Stay safe,” she called out to the open air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was initially not going to make Peter deal with personal issues and Spider-Man issues at the same time, but that’s what happens in like... all of the comics. 
> 
> Comments and Kudos mean the world to me, as always!


	8. Identities

Michelle had trouble falling asleep that night, something she couldn’t even convince herself wasn’t because she knew Spider-Man had something major to deal with. She knew that Spider-Man was competent, of course. No one could deny that after nearly eight years of activity. But still, it sounded like he planned to fight the people with swords some more. MJ wasn’t an expert, but even she knew that fighting someone who had stabbed you with a sword wasn’t a particularly great call.

Eventually, tired of failing to fall asleep, Michelle rolled over and pulled her phone from the charger, blinking against the bright lights as its lock screen became visible. She squinted at the screen, and unlocked her phone before going to look at the news.

There was nothing about Spider-Man, which may have been for the best, in terms of his safety.

What did make the news, however, was a late night press release by the Daily Bugle. Jameson did go through with trying to sue Parker after all, something that Matt would likely be way too excited about all through work the next day.

The “Buglegate” megathread had already hit a few thousand comments by the time MJ got to it, so she did was she did best: sorted by controversial, made sure nothing too crazy was there, before systematically rebutting all of the bullshit that she read. It felt weird, now, knowing that Parker was a prolific commenter in his own right, and discussing him felt weird. Michelle wondered just how well Parker knew Spider-Man, and whether or not that was why he didn’t like to talk about him.

No, Parker was not going to go to jail for publishing these things (in theory he would probably just get fined, if he was actually breaking the law at all), and yes, him recording a conversation with his boss was legal.

No, Parker could not sue Jameson back on behalf of Spider-Man, but Spider-Man could probably sue the bugle for defamation of character, if he were a citizen of New York.

As it turned out, according to some documents _u/AirToSigh_ found in the public record, Spider-Man was technically a citizen of New York. It was something that had been required in order for him to testify in a number of small-time domestic abuse cases he had been a witness for, but meant that Spider-Man could actually sue the Bugle, if he wanted.

She dutifully forwarded that to Foggy and Matt, and then to Karen as well, to make sure it somehow got read. If nothing else, it was an interesting legal situation, and was worth them knowing, if they didn’t already.

After, Michelle compiled everything she could find into a post on her own preferred sub, r/NYCHeroesLegal, cataloguing past cases that involved libel and secret identities. The intersection of the two didn’t seem to have many prior cases, unfortunately.

* * *

Michelle decided to sit on her balcony that night, even if Spider-Man wouldn’t be there.

Harrison Bergeron was an interesting read, especially when recommended to her by a superhero generally considered to be the strongest.

After all, Spider-Man was known to be stronger than just about anyone on the planet, aside from maybe Jessica Jones or Power Man (who was better known as Luke Cage, the worlds worst keeper of his own secret identity), neither of whose powers were not nearly as well documented.

Michelle suggested it to _u/AirToSigh_ after she read it, and considered suggesting it to Peter as well. She decided against that idea, though. They didn’t know each other that week yet, something that MJ was surprised to find she regretted.

Discussing the work with _u/AirToSigh_ was a good way to kill the time, despite his questionable inspirations to attempt to measure Spider-Man’s strength and intellect. 

It was four in the morning when reports on Twitter began to come in: there were reports that a number of vigilantes had fought against what were said to be ninjas. Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Jessica Jones were all clearly identifiable, and there were a few reports that someone with a glowing hand was helping them. That was probably Iron Fist, Michelle reasoned through a yawn, before getting up to make herself a cup of tea.

She was surprised to find Spider-Man sitting on her fire escape when she got back, and scurried to pour a second cup of tea.

“You know, you probably shouldn’t leave your windows unlocked like this,” Spider-Man teased when she sat down next to him. (Was he teasing? The idea of Spider-Man teasing her felt weird to even think about.)

“Most people can’t climb....” Michelle trailed off, making a show of counting windows, “eight stories in thirty seconds”.

Spider-Man laughed at that, and seemed to agree. “The guys I fought today could.” He sat still for a moment before rolling up his mask to take a sip of the tea. He angled his body slightly away from her, but continued to speak.

“But you’re right, most people can’t. You wanna talk about something more fun? Have any questions?”

It was hard not for MJ to grin at that. She had plenty of questions, of course, but chose an easier one, for now.

“What are your thoughts about running for a public office?” She asked, ignoring Spider-Man’s unimpressed snort as she continued. “Everyone seems to agree that if you ran for just about anything, you would win in a landslide.” Spider-Man would have to unmask himself, of course, but he wouldn’t have to campaign at all, especially if he was against people as sketchy as Fisk.

Spider-Man hummed with thought, and his mask wrinkled a little. It was hard for Michelle to get a read on this guy without facial expressions, which frustrated her immensely” Finally, Spider-Man spoke up. “I think that Spider-Man could do well, but Spider-Man isn’t allowed to run for public office anyways, he’s a persona. If the civilian behind the Spider-Man mask ran, I don’t think that people would be nearly as excited, anyways.”

MJ was thrown off by that claim, especially due to the distinction between Spider-Man as a civilian compared to as a hero. “Do you consider yourself and Spider-Man to be different people?” She asked.

“It’s more complicated than that, I feel like,” Spider-Man said. He sounded a little resigned to the fact, too.

“Sometimes I wonder if Spider-Man is Miles’ alter ego, or the other way around,” Spider-Man said like it was an explanation.

The concept that a person was defined more by their super-hero identity than their civilian one… it felt concerning to Michelle, like Spider-Man had stopped feeling like their civilian self mattered. She didn’t like that thought at all, really. With all the good Spider-Man did, she couldn’t imagine whoever was under the mask could be hated for anything.

“You mean that Miles doesn’t matter as much as Spider-Man does?” Michelle forced herself to ask, even though she already knew the answer.

Spider-Man laughed, and hummed his confirmation. “Yea. And I mean, unlike with Miles, where his being Spider-Man makes people think of him as a flake and harms his relationship with Gwen…” Spider-Man trailed off, as if catching himself. “How much of the comic have you read?” 

Michelle was a few issues behind, to be honest, but did promise she planned to catch up soon.

“Well, I’ve helped with the next issue, and it comes out tomorrow, I think. I hope it helps explain why I don’t ever intend to take off this mask, MJ.” Spider-Man said, pulling his mask back over her face. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised, before swinging off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! I’m glad to finally be getting this out. I have some more stuff I’m hoping to post soon, and I would love to hear what people think of this so far!


	9. Comic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something I’ve been planning for a while now...

Michelle woke up at 6:30, only to find that Karen had already let her know she had the day off again. She went back to sleep.

It was 4:30pm by the time Michelle actually woke up, and she still felt tired. Her second day off in row hasn’t exactly been productive, but it didn’t seem like Matt or Foggy had gotten much done, either

The shared google drive hadn’t been touched in 48 hours, but Foggy had sent an email saying that things would be ‘back to normal tomorrow,’ something he seemed surprised by as well. Apparently Matt had fallen down some stairs, and had been laid up at home nursing some bruises since the previous morning.

The internet, once Michelle had rubbed the sleep from her eyes and checked it, was abuzz about both Gwen Stacy and Spider-Man. Huh.Michelle didn’t think that enough people even followed the comic series to make that happen.

She made it a point to buy the most recent issues from a news stand before delving into online discussion. She even left the cover blocking tape over the front of the newest issue, which warned her not to remove until after reading the it. She obeyed, but it wasn’t even that Michelle cared much about spoilers, so much as about forming her own opinions before seeing what other people has to say. She sat down on a bench in the park, and got to reading.

The tape was a huge clue that something in the issue would be major, which was more exciting to Michele than anything comics related should be to a 24 year or not named Peter Parker, Flash Thompson, or Ned Leeds. The latter two were huge Spider-Man fans, and Michele was positive that they had both already read the issue.

Michelle decided to wait until that evening, however, and instead continued to walk around queens, stopping at the bookstore to pick up _Little Fires Everywhere_ for Spider-Man.

She was only getting it because she knew that it was hard to find, she told herself. It was just that she thought he would like it. She picked up some coffee and a rotisserie chicken at the Bodega by her apartment, and finally allowed herself to sit on the fire escape and begin to read.

It took a while, but Michelle finally caught up to the comics. They were actually pretty good, and the payoff of Gwen finally finding out Miles was Spider-Man was something that plenty of fans had been waiting for, especially now that they were together. She was part of the way through the most recent one when a voice interrupted her.

“I know I suggested it, but I’ve never seen you read fiction before,” Spider-Man remarks one day, “but this seems a little below your typical reading level,” he grinned, gesturing to Michelle’s new copy of _Superior Spider-Man_. 

Michelle looks up from the comic, and she can’t help but smile as she bookmarks her place and looks up at the comic’s inspiration.

“I didn’t realize this was fiction, Miles,” Michelle replied, smirking. She’s ninety-nine point nine nine percent sure that Spider-man isn’t actually named Miles Morales, of course, but the doesn’t mean the work is entirely fiction. Truth be told, Michelle was curious as to what Spider-Man would be willing to say about the content of it.

Spider-Man, to his credit, simply laughs. “I pretty much answer to that name now, thanks to those Stan and Jack.” Lee and Kirby do great work, Michelle knows. Knowing Spider-Man helps write some aspects of the comic doesn’t surprise her, either.

“Thoughts?” He asks, dangling from the fire escape above Michelle’s with a strand of webbing. 

“Miles is way cooler than you are,” Michelle teases.

Spider-Man just shrugs, seemingly having long since accepted this accusation. “That’s fair, Miles’ origin is much cooler than mine, truth be told.”

Michelle’s reporter instincts flare, and she sees her chance to ask the money question. “Please tell me they at least got the source of powers right,” she pretends to groan, feigning exasperation.

Spider-Man laughs. “They did, actually. Sort of. Minus the graffiti thing.”

Michelle makes an affirmative noise, and gestures for him to go on. She knows that Spider-Man’s image is pretty much in the public domain, and that his likeness is practically free to use. Nelson and Murdock helped with that legal work, which is a whole new level of crazy.

“I actually consulted on parts of the origin story, after I saw the character design.” Spider-Man says, as he picks up the cup of tea.

Michelle can see Spider-Man doing that. Her favorite part of the comics are always the parts where Miles is Miles, and not Spider-Man. There is something far more interesting about that aspect of his life than there is about whatever made up villain he takes down in the newest issue.

There had been plenty of attempts at a Spider-Man comic before, but most of them crashed and burned. Sure, fight scenes could always be fun, but no one really knew how to handle a Spider-Man outside of the suit, and most of the comics never had the creativity to make those aspects interesting. 

“Did you finish the issue, yet?” Spider-Man asks, even though he just saw her reading it, and the **SPOILERS: DO NOT REMOVE** sticker still covering the title. 

“I still need ten, fifteen minutes, actually,” Michelle says, already itching to get back to reading. Norman Osborn is on the verge of figuring out who Miles really is, before Miles discovers his identity as the Green Goblin. Between that and Miles’ argument with Gwen (who still doesn’t knew he is Spider-Man), the issue is very high drama, to the point where MJ is surprised she actually likes it. 

“I did get you a book, though,” Michelle says, holding it up to show it. Spider-Man looks the cover up and down before taking it carefully. He sits down slowly, and begins to read, somehow still managing to turn the pages despite his gloves. Michelle can’t help but watch him for a moment, before turning to her own comic. 

Everything that has been foreshadowed clicks into place a whole page early, for Michelle, when Osborn kidnaps Gwen Stacy and holds her on top of a bridge. MJ knows what’s coming, and she doesn’t like it. 

It’s almost worse, knowing what is coming as Michelle goes through the panels, and watches Gwen Stacy die in Miles’ arms. 

Michelle didn’t even need to look online to know that plenty of people, Flash likely included, probably thought that Gwen was still alive, or could be resurrected somehow. 

MJ knew the truth, considering the cover’s haunting **The night Gwen Stacy died** text, and what Spider-Man had said to her the night before. 

To think that Spider-Man chose to never take off his mask to protect a loved one made a lot of sense, and was frighteningly consistent with what Parker had to say on the topics of secret identities. MJ really had been judging Parker wrong this whole time, she realized. 

Michelle doesn’t realize she shed a tear until Spider-Man let’s out a fake cough, and offers her a handkerchief from who-knows-where. 

“You okay? It made me cry too, you know,” Spider-Man says softly, scooting over to sit closer to Michelle. One of his arms gently wraps around her shoulder, and Michelle feels safe. 

It’s all Michelle can do not to keep bawling, so she just nods, embarrassed. 

“I told them to kill her off, you know, and it still made me cry when I read it. I do think that answers your question about the mask, though.” 

Michelle can only nod, and she wipes the tears out of her eyes. 

“Was there a Gwen?” She forces herself to ask, holding her breath. No one, especially not someone as good as Spider-Man, deserves to have to deal with something as difficult as losing a love like that. 

Spider-Man let out a sigh. “No, there wasn’t. That’s by choice, you know. I couldn’t bear to lose someone like that, or to make them lose me.”

Michelle took a sip of her tea, and sighed. “You know,” she began, using her patented ‘lawyer voice’ that made her classmates clam up in mock debates, “It sounds more like cowardice to me, refusing to open up to people because of fear”.

Spider-Man frowned at that, before tugging his mask back on. “Maybe.” He agreed, before swinging off with an “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many days off for MJ! Any ideas why?  
> As always, let me know what you think in the comments!


	10. Realization

Spider-Man swinging away so quickly really does sting. Seeing as Michelle Jones, bookworm extraordinaire just called Spider-Man, New York’s Hero a coward, however, his reaction does feel reasonable. His reaction feels more emotional than that, though, and Michele can’t place why.

At first, she considers that Spider-Man might be dating someone, or hell, even _married_. Maybe he just isn’t willing to tell them, even. 

That doesn’t feel right, though, and not just because their fire escape conversations feel a little bit romantic.

After all, Spider-Man is painfully dedicated to his spandex-wearing hobby, to the extent that she isn’t sure he has much of a social life. According to a combination of Twitter searches and personal knowledge, the guy has patrolled on every Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Valentines Day, New Years Eve, and Halloween for almost ten years, so she’s pretty sure that he isn’t getting lucky on any of those nights.

Not that Spider-Man's romantic situation is something MJ thinks about, of course.

Except that she did today.

And yesterday.

And…

Oh. Oh, Michelle realizes, because it is something she thinks about, and that’s a fact that Michelle has to admit. The sky is blue, two plus two is four, and Michelle cares way more about whether Spider-Man is single than anyone who doesn’t have a crush on him has any right to. It feels simultaneously thrilling and embarrassing to admit to herself as she sits there, on her fire escape. She says it out loud, once, quietly into the night. “I have a crush on Spider-Man,” and yeah, as she hears it in her voice she knows it’s true. The sky Is blue, two plus two is four, and Michelle _still_ has a crush on Spider-Man.

Admittedly, Michelle had been almost obsessive about the whole thing, four-ish years ago, when she very clearly did have a crush on Spider-Man. She binged old episodes of Trish Talk for even morsels of discussion about vigilantes on her way to and from class, eager for any mention of the famed Jessica Jones on the podcast. Hell, she even read comic books from before real-life vigilantes were on everything from breakfast cereals to arrest warrants to ads for whatever whiskey Jessica Jones had last. And yes, MJ knows now with hindsight that she was trying to figure out how the whole romancing a masked vigilante thing worked. When her senior year (and the torture of law school applications) started, she made herself give up on the idea. At least, she thought she had.

And shit, does realizing she _still_ had a crush on Spider-Man suck. It’s like MJ is fifteen again, except now she isn’t overhearing Liz Allen play FMK. It’s worse, because she _knows_ the celebrity. Is friends with him, even, if she can say that. “I’m friends with Spider-Man,” she tries to admit to herself, aloud once more as she climbs back into her apartment through her window. That one sounds like the the truth, too. She doesn’t dare say ‘Spider-Man is in love with me’ out loud though, because she doesn’t really want to know, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to tell either way.

In the end, after tossing and turning for what feels like hours, Michelle sets a second and a third alarm on her phone, and downs what should probably be an illegal cocktail and melatonin and NyQuil. It’s the only way she’s gonna get to sleep, she has to admit.

* * *

Matt and Foggy are back at work the next day, and Foggy throws Michelle a breakfast taco as she logs into her laptop, gleefully informing her that today is ‘Taco Thursday’. Karen rolls her eyes, something MJ has the feeling Matt would do too, if he could.

The morning passes relatively quickly, thank goodness. A few potential clients come in, one of whom Matt (Michelle has to get herself to stop calling him Murdock) shoos away within a minute. Foggy and Karen seem unsurprised by his antics, but there is some whispering later on. They order a pizza for lunch, and Matt and Foggy bicker about whether to get pineapple before they agree to one of each. Karen just laughs at their antics, and mouths “this happens every time” to MJ. It’s nice. It feels like home.

MJ eats some of the pineapple pizza once it arrives, and politely looks away as Foggy practically force feeds some pizza to Matt, along with some Advil. She scrolls through Twitter on her phone in the meantime, seeing as there aren’t any clients, and neither Matt nor Foggy seem too concerned.

The first few trends on twitter really aren’t that interesting. It looks like some normal things are happening, and there was a crime ring shut down yesterday, but nothing that’s too out of the ordinary, at least for New York.

> _Trending in New York_
> 
> **Midland Circle**
> 
> Trending with: #Daredevil, #Spidey, Ninjas

> _Entertainment_ · Trending
> 
> **#BringBenSoloBack**
> 
> 38.1K Tweets

> _NBA_ · Trending
> 
> **#LACvsMIA**
> 
> 1,619 Tweets

The fourth trend is what catches Michelle’s eye, though.

> _Literature_ · Trending
> 
> **Little Fires Everywhere**
> 
> Trending with: Spider Man

Sure enough, a quick tap later, and it turns out that yes, Spider-Man was spotted reading _Little Fires Everywhere_ what, an hour or two ago? The picture, though amateur, shows Spider-Man clearly hanging upside down by Triboro bridge, a book in hand. It seems like it took all of twenty minutes before someone (u/AirToSigh’s twitter) recognized the green cover. Apparently at some point he had moved to hang below the bridge, still engrossed in the book. Michelle rolled her eyes at the obvious antics, but she really did appreciate that Spider-Man was actually reading the book. Most people would just say they read a book, something that Michelle was guilty of herself once or twice.

The afternoon falls into full swing shortly after Michelle gets off twitter, and includes two more visitors. The first is a tall blond man who took one step inside, made eye contact with Michelle, and then turned right around after muttering something about being at the wrong place, much to Foggy’s obvious amusement. The second doesn’t walk in until 4:45, and was recommended Nelson and Murdock by Spider-Man, apparently, which already makes both Matt and Foggy lean forwards. As it turns out, it’s their lucky day, and Mr. Tannenbaum needed help with a disability case, too. It’s the perfect storm, and Nelson and Murdock are more than happy to help him sue the pants off of some discriminatory employers. Michelle is thrilled as they dig into their first real case, and the three of them turn their attention to case law so quickly that they don’t realize that it’s 6:45pm and that Karen sent the guy away with a card like… an hour ago.

Karen just laughs as Michelle finally looks up and makes the realization, before threatening Foggy and Matt that she’ll call Peter unless they get going, and he can come over here and scold them himself. Matt, still outraged about the horrors of discriminative employment, ignores Karen for far too long. Michelle can only watch, really, as Karen makes good on her threats (it’s the only way to keep these two honest, she mouths) and calls Peter Parker of all people on speaker phone. As it turns out, all it takes is a “Matt, do you need me to call Wade?” and Matt Murdock is scrambling to leave the office.

Michelle doesn’t know who Wade is, but her respect for Peter Parker rises for the third? fourth? time in a week, and she decides she really wants to meet Wade. In the meantime though, Michelle puts in her headphones and puts on Trish Talk, and begins to walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this Slow Burn is going even slower than I expected, but we finally do have Michelle admitting that she likes Spider-Man! One of the limits of my sticking to one point of view is that you don't get to know how Peter feels yet. 
> 
> Do you think Peter like MJ as well? How do you feel about the fics pace?


	11. Daredevil

The evening goes by quickly, really. Michelle makes herself take a nap until around ten, just to make sure she didn’t pass out while talking to (or waiting for) Spider-Man. She eats some of a rotisserie chicken before she goes out to the fire escape to wait. It takes one, and then two hours made up of a full reread of the Brant-Leeds identity article and the full Comic run thus far until MJ concludes that Spider-Man isn’t coming.

And the things is, that Michelle has swore up and down she was too smart to ever end up in a situation where she needed Spider-Man or some other vigilante’s help. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a fan of them or anything, it was pretty simple, really. Go into sketchy, dark alleyways? Don’t do. Walk home alone at night? Definitely don’t do.

But somehow, walking around late at night because Spider-Man doesn’t show up at your fire escape to talk isn’t something MJ ever considered could lead to her needing a vigilantes help. Of course, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need the help, though. Michelle does her best to ignore the cat calling, wolf whistling assholes offering her a ride. She’s two blocks away from her apartment, but those two blocks feel a lot longer when all she can do is walk.

She’s got a few good reasons that she doesn’t need a ride home, of course. They include “No thanks”, the fact that she definitely doesn’t want any of them to know where she lives, and that she is a strong, independent woman, who can certainly get home on her own.

That said, she eventually strikes entry number three from her list, and replaces it with: Daredevil is here now, and he is definitely the better choice for who can give her a walk home.

After Daredevil has successfully growled “Scram” at the aforementioned assholes, he pauses, and looks her up and down.

“You seen Spider-Man today?,” he asks, and it’s the kind of question that implies he knows a great deal, like a lawyer questioning a witness. Michelle frowns, seeing as he clearly knows that she sees him at least occasionally.

“Not tonight, no.” She’s heard that Daredevil can tell when people are lying, and she spends enough time reading about the assorted Vigilantes of New York to know he’s trustworthy, and friends with Spider-Man.

“Damn. He probably missed his alarm. Well, let’s get you home,” Daredevil growled, his voice probably three pitches lower than any human ever should be. That’s one way to disguise a voice, at least.

“How’d you know I know Spidey?” Michelle asks, falling a half step behind Daredevil as she walks home. He leads the way, which is odd, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he knew her address to begin with. He seems the type.

Daredevil ignores the question, which pisses Michelle off a little bit. Instead, he starts his own overdramatic monologue, which is just like vigilantes, from what Michelle knows.

“You’re good for him, you know?” He drawls, crossing the crosswalk with her. “He’s been...” Daredevil pauses, searching for a word. Michelle prays that someday she too can express exactly how she feels in short phrases, and read people at least half as well as Daredevil can. “Happier,” Daredevil finally decides, and Michelle pretends her heart doesn’t potter patter at the idea she makes _Spider-Man_ happy.

Michelle hums, feigning disinterest, but Daredevil seems to catch her on it. “You’re allowed to have a crush on him, you know.” Daredevil laughs, and is he teasing her? Spider-Man is so much easier to read, damn it.

She sets her shoulders, and frowns. “I’ve still got a little hero worship in me, sue me,” she growls, as if she could actually threaten the vigilante so ruthless he was once called the Devil. If Daredevil notices that she didn’t answer the question, he doesn’t say anything.

“Maybe I will,” Daredevil smirks, and he’s definitely teasing, now. And then, Michelle watches him twitch, and tighten his grip on his billy club. “This is where I leave you.” He says, stopping just before her apartment building. 

They’re in a far better lit area of the city, now, so maybe he’s just more comfortable dropping her off. Either way, by the time Michelle has turned to give her thanks, he’s gone.

* * *

The next morning, Michelle spots a paper bag sitting on her fire escape as she gets ready. Her heart definitely doesn’t skip a beat as she sees the tin of tea in there, no. The hastily scrawled note is stupidly messy, and it makes Michelle a moment to read it.

_Sorry about not being able to stop by yesterday. I was super sleep deprived because I finished Little Fires Everywhere, which might be an acceptable excuse? I slept through my alarm, but our mutual friend woke me. I do plan to see you today, though, at an earlier time!_ **-S**

It’s signed with a cursive S in webbing, the only indication of who even wrote the note in the first place. Their mutual friend must be Daredevil, Michelle realizes, despite the fact that she hardly knows the guy.

A present from Spider-Man isn’t even Michelle’s biggest surprise of the morning, though. That honor goes to a single email in her inbox, from Karen. It's title is just **tomorrow** and it's just two sentences, but it conveys enough information to get Michelle moving.

_JJJ filed a lawsuit against Parker (Libel and Defamation, the nerve!) after all. We’ll be meeting with him this morning, at eight thirty._

It only takes Michelle checking her watch to see that it’s eight before she’s running out the door, and fast walking her way to Nelson and Murdock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to speed up, now! This is probably the only time MJ will get to interact with Daredevil, but I do promise that we should get a little more legal stuff in the future. 
> 
> I hope people caught the Daredevil inside joke in this chapter. Because DD/Matt is one of my favorite secret identity dichotomies, expect more in the future!


	12. Lawsuit

Parker was already at the office when Michelle arrived, and was chugging what looked to be a second Red Bull when he spots her. His shirt featured what looked like clip art of an apple, paired with 3.1415…, with each digit a different bright color. Michelle has to admit that while the pun is fairly lame, it’s not that bad. 

Parker didn’t look up until the door closed behind her, however, Michelle could spot the exact moment he realized that she saw him chugging Red Bulls at 8:55 in the morning. “MJ!” He grinned at her, far too happy for someone who got served by a million dollar corporation the evening before. Michelle hated morning people on principle, but Parker doesn’t seem so bad today. Maybe it’s Michelle’s high of getting a present from Spider-Man hasn’t worn off yet. Or, more likely, it’s the box of donuts that Peter brought that’s cheering her up. It’s definitely not Peter himself though, that much is for sure. 

Michelle, of course, is not nearly as much of a morning person as Foggy or Parker are. She manages to force herself to mutter a “morning,” before she took a jelly filled donut from the box, and threw herself into one of the comfy chairs in the office. 

One thing that had initially bugged Michelle about Nelson and Murdock’s office was that none of the furniture matched. She blamed Foggy’s haphazard attitude with things along with Matt’s blindness, but one thing was for sure: the assortment of chairs and couches are all very comfortable. 

Parker more or less falls into the seat beside Michelle, unceremoniously throwing a pile of very fancy looking documents onto the table. “I can uh, answer any questions that you guys have, but otherwise I’ll be working on my own stuff, if that’s okay,” Peter said, uncomfortable, his words sounding more like a question than a statement. 

Karen seemed to know exactly how to answer that, because what doesn’t that woman know how to do? “That’s alright Peter. I’m sure Matt and Foggy will be out in a moment, and we can hopefully get through with this by lunchtime,” she says, raising her voice as she mentioned Matt and Foggy. 

Michelle had learned enough from decathlon drama to know when to pretend not to notice something, and she stared at the documents in front of her as Matt and Foggy shuffled into the main room. It already looked like a war zone, of course, files and papers spread across the table. 

Fortunately, Karen was the organization goddess the two-and-a-half lawyers needed. She loaded the stack of papers into a scanner, after which Matt seemed able to access the information on a tablet. He had a pair of headphones plugged into it, and it seemed like the files were being read to him by the device. She printed out additional copies as well, and passed them to Peter, Michelle, and Foggy. Matt pulled out a pair of too large headphones and began to listen, while Foggy began to read. Michelle followed Foggy’s lead, absently noting that Peter did as well, paging through the small packet that represented the Bugle’s lawsuit. 

Michelle had been among the fastest at reading legal documents in her class, thanks to her ability to scan quickly, and the thousands of books she had read in high school. Somehow, she was still done reading way after both Foggy and Matt, whose headphones were off and placed to the side. It looked like Parker was done too, but she had no idea how much of the documents he had even read. Knowing how spacey he had been in high school, probably very little. 

“Before we get started, do you have any question, Peter?” Matt asked carefully, his hands folded and in his lap. 

“Yea, about the third document,” Peter said, which made Matt snort. Michelle had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as well, seeing as the third document was so ridiculous. 

“Mmhm,” Matt said, swiping on his tablet as everyone else at the table turned to the appropriate page. 

“They’re actually trying to accuse me of...” Peter trailed off, searching for the words. “Corporate espionage?” 

“Along with libel and half a dozen charges, yup,” Foggy chimed in, oddly casual. 

“He’s also suing for ridiculous amounts of money,” Peter said, a little more distressed than Michelle’s bosses, who seemed positively gleeful. “I mean, these amounts are insane, and I was barely able to get through school as is. I haven’t even found a job yet, and May is…”

“Pete, calm down,” Matt cut Peter off, sounding oddly scolding. “Most of these suits are totally bull, and are just there to intimidate you. The dollar amounts are too. Chances are none of this will stick,” he explained. 

Those tactics should, as far as MJ was concerned, be illegal, but she wasn’t particularly surprised Jameson would do something like that. Especially considering he was willing to publish lies in the first place, accusing someone of murder no less. 

“Besides, even if it does…” Foggy began to chime in, only to be shut down by an elbow from Matt. Huh. 

“Hey.” Michelle chimed in, diverting Peter’s attention with her Decathlon Captain Voicetm. “None of this should stick anyways, so the best thing we can do is fight it.” That seemed to calm Peter down, at least. 

From there, the group was able to move through the rest of the documents quickly, and were finished well before one. “So basically we have to file everything next week, and if for some reason the case doesn’t get dropped by the judge, we would need to actually go to court?” Peter finally summarized, shoving notes into his bag. 

“That’s it, Peter,” Foggy confirmed, ignoring Peter’s attempt at a handshake in favor of a hug. “We’ll keep in touch, of course. Stay safe out there.” 

Peter did end up shaking Matt’s hand, meeting his hand in the middle with a grace that was clearly practiced. Peter’s stomach seemed to growl halfway through the hug, which was embarrassing for all parties involved. After sustaining a brief scolding Peter was told to eat right away, and Karen told Michelle that she was free to take the afternoon off, but only if she made sure Peter actually ate something. That was something she could agree to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sets up a little bit more of an actual plot, so I hope no one minds the pacing too much. 
> 
> I've been thinking about taking part in BAMFuary, which you can check out at https://ferretshark.tumblr.com/post/190508665197
> 
> If that's something you'd like to see, let me know! I'll be posting chapter of this along with BAMFuary oneshots, but the order those things get posted in will largely depend on your comments!
> 
> Edit: I updated some portions of the start of the fic for tense. There is one small nugget of a hint that Peter is Spidey, but MJ doesn't catch it here. Maybe a sharp eyed reader will, though.


	13. Invitation

Lunch with Peter is far less awkward than Michelle expected it would be. Peter is a much better conversationalist than she would have expected him to be, especially after the disaster that he had been in high school. The conversation starts out a little tricky - Peter is loud and speaks with hand motions the whole time, and Michelle would wonder if he even realizes it’s something he was doing if he wasn’t perfectly avoiding knocking over his and her cups of water. 

“So,” Michelle eventually asks, trying to make her way to the important question(tm) that she wants to ask in a way that won’t offend. “Matt said he’d helped you out with legal stuff before?” 

Somehow, even with how enthusiastic Peter already seemed while talking to her (and no, Michelle isn’t flattered, and she’s a one man at a time type of gal anyways), he seems even more excited as he starts to brag on Matt. Peter explained that his Aunt had gotten very sick, as in, cancer sick right around the time he started taking photos for the bugle. Matt had helped him deal with the legalities of dropping out high school to pay for his sick aunt’s chemo, which, well. he had hastened to explain that he took community college courses online during that time as well, answering a question Michelle hadn't even realized she had. If Michelle hasn’t felt like an ass for judging Peter about missing Decathlon before, she certainly would now. 

She told as much to Peter, who just shrugged it off. “No worries, Michelle. I knew none of you would have judged me if you knew, I just didn’t know how to explain it all.”

“Call me MJ.” Michelle corrected. It was a silly gesture, and it wasn't like Peter would understand the significance, but it was something, at least. 

“MJ.” Peter agreed easily, and the nickname sounded familiar to Michelle when he said them, like he was someone she spoke to often. It was a stupid though, of course, seeing as very few people actually used the nickname to begin with. 

Their sandwiches finally arrived, and provided a welcome distraction for both of them as the heavy topics were discarded in favor of putting the chips directly onto the delicious looking turkey sandwiches. 

“So, what’s been keeping you busy then, Parker?” MJ asked a few bites in, wiping some aioli from her face as she did so. 

Peter, for his part, was already done with like, half of his sandwich, but fended off his hunger to answer. “Right now I’m working to get certified to teach, but in the meantime I’m looking to intern somewhere in the biotech space. You’re enjoying working with Matt and Foggy?” 

“Yeah, it’s been good. I was originally interested in working there because of their vigilante work, but there’s been less of that then I expected.” 

Peter snorted at that remark, with a twinkle in his eye that made it seem like maybe he knew more than she did. It was just like the one that Karen or Foggy would get, and Michelle could swear even Matt got it occasionally, even with his blindness. 

“What?" Peter asked, clearly teasing. "You expected to be seeing Daredevil daily, and that your first client would be Spider-Man or something?” 

And well... no, that wasn’t what Michelle had expected, of course, but even so. She’d expected _something_. She voiced as much to Peter, who just laughed. “I’m sure you’ll have something come up soon. I do have to run though, I’ve got an interview with Stark Industries this afternoon, and I really do need to do a little bit of cram work. I’ve heard their interviews are hell.” 

Michelle had gotten a similar impression from the few ESU students she knew who had even gotten invited to interview there, and she had crammed for a few interviews of her own, so she could relate. She let Peter get going, and didn’t even notice the cash he had left in the middle of the table until he was long gone - more than enough for them both and a tip, the little shit. 

The second half of the work day was fairly boring, and Michelle was let go a little early, probably on account of how often she was yawning - she’d been up far too late most nights in the past week, especially for someone who had been sleeping until noon all through the summer before her job started. 

Before Michelle knows it, it’s 11:00 again and she’s made her way back to the fire escape. 

”I met Daredevil yesterday.” Michelle says as Spider-Man takes a seat, and grinned in satisfaction as Spider-Man seemed to do a double take. 

“Ah, that explains a lot," Spider-Man laughed, and Michelle had a feeling he was rolling his eyes. “We uh, met up, late last night, did some work. He made fun of me for something, must have been that he met you.” 

“What was the work?” Michelle tried, not really sure what to expect. 

Spider-Man never really talked about the work he did with other vigilantes, or what he did on the down low, for that matter. If the rumors were to be believed, something major _almost_ went down almost week, and then the vigilantes of New York took care of it. 

“Nothing major, just took down some weapons traffickers.” Spider-Man said, like it was another Friday night. To be fair for him, it probably was. 

“Double D’s an old dog by now,” Spider-Man made a weird sound, making a noise that sounded like it started with an F, before correcting himself. “Friends of his made me help him out.” 

“How old is that?” Michelle pressed, but she knew a non answer was coming before Spider-Man even spoke. 

“Vigilante years are like dog years, you know?” Spider-Man said, even though Michelle very much did NOT know. “Like, when most of us start, we can’t even drink, myself included. The wear and tear on our bodies, it’ll be a miracle if I made it to thirty with all my limbs attached”. 

Michelle took note of the fact that these ages definitely confirmed that Spider-Man had been in high school when he started his work, and pushed down the mushy feelings that came with imagining the he went to Midtown with her. 

“But I’m not here to rant about how I’m basically an old man by now, MJ. I actually wanted to show you something, if that’s alright. Once in a lifetime, all that jazz.” Spider-Man stood theatrically at the edge of the fire escape, one hand out ready to take hers. 

And well, who was Michelle to say no to an offer like that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this took so long to get published! I've been very busy, but I should be able to get another chapter up in the near future. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos mean a lot as I look for motivation to keep this going!


	14. Stargazing

Michelle steps forward  slowly  and  cautiously,  gently  placing her hand on top of Spider-Man’s, palm in palm.

Spider-Man other hand produces a mask from who-knows-where, and with only the explanation of “wind, and paparazzi”. MJ still isn’t  entirely  sure what the plan is, but she does trust Spider-Man, so she pulls the mask on anyways.  It’s snug around the top of her head but looser below her nose, perfect for keeping warm without making it difficult to speak.

“I’m gonna need you to hang onto me as a swing, if that’s alright” Spider-Man says, and it sounds more like an order than a

“You ready?”  Spider-Man asks, and Michelle can’t do much but nod  weakly  as she realizes that she is _very_ close to Spider-Man right now.

As it turns out, MJ realizes that she was not ready, because nothing can compare to the feeling of Web Swinging through the streets of New York.  There are still lights on, of course, this is the city that never sleeps, but as Spider-Man’s arcs get higher they start to get smaller, only to grow once more as they the speed through the Queensboro bridge at a speed Michelle didn’t think was possible.

The videos of Spider-Man swinging, not even the POV ones he takes himself and certainly not the CGI ones, are even close to the real thing, and Michelle is out of breath from laughing in pure delight as Spider-Man finally stops the swinging, perched on the top of some building that Michelle couldn't name.

“You alright?” Spider-Man asks, and Michelle has to take a moment to catch her breath.  She realizes in that moment that she’d  literally  wrapped her arms and legs around Spider-Man’s torso, and that despite her lack of breath, Spider-Man seemed  totally  fine. Stupid enhancements,  totally  unfair.

“Yeah, I’m good. That was... amazing.”  Michelle tried, as if that was a word good enough to describe the feeling of swinging through the city she loved at what had to be at least 50 miles an hour.

Spider-Man  just  laughed, stretching out on the blanket he already had set up, and poured some tea from a thermos into a pair of small mugs. “It  really  is, isn’t it? Took a long time for me to get used to as well, truth  be told.”  Michelle was well aware of that, actually, based on the home video compilations that made their way to YouTube.

“Your webbing is synthetic, yeah?” Michelle asked, confirming what was all-but-known at this point. “How’d you come up with it?”

Spider-Man paused at that, before finally answering. “Yeah, it was uh, something my Dad had been doing research in before he passed.  I was able to finish off his work, thanks to about seven cases of Red Bull and a lot of research I had already done about Spiders, because of the whole,” Spider-Man gestured towards himself as if that explained it, which it did, Michelle supposed.

“And the swinging?”

Spider-Man laughed. “I was curious if I could. I couldn’t, at first, but I heal pretty quick.”

“You had to do a lot of learning early on, didn’t you?” Michelle asked  cautiously.  She didn’t like the picture of Spider-Man’s early career that she was starting to paint in her mind: a dead dad, plenty of injuries, not  really  being able to tell anyone. She could see why Spider-Man was such a fan of Lee’s Miles Morale Spider-Man character, which was often critiqued as being _too_ gritty. Compared to what was likely the reality, Michelle wasn’t sure it was gritty enough.

“Yeah, I had no clue what I was doing, but I wanted to make a difference, like I saw Double D could.  I figured it would have been selfish not to use my abilities for good, and it was more like my responsibility than anything,” Spider-Man shrugged, like that type of noble drive was commonplace.

“You’re saying Daredevil mentored you?” Michelle asked.  It seemed like an odd pairing, the  perpetually  sour Daredevil and New York’s own ray of sunshine, but she could imagine weirder things.

“On accident, more than anything.  He patched me up after a rough fight of mine, taught me how to actually fight,” Spider-Man explained, pulling up the base of his mask to nibble on a blueberry muffin. “Double D can’t help but try to teach, it’s his guilt complex,” he vigilante added.

“He seemed to know that we knew each other,” Michelle stated in what was definitely. Not an attempt to leverage more information from Spider-Man. Even so, it sounded more like a question than a fact. Of course, the fact that Daredevil could  just  _tell_ was unnerving to her, for some reason. She didn’t like the idea anyone looking inside her head, hero or not.

In response, Spiderman lifted the mug of tea towards his mouth, his mask still resting  just  below his nose. He seemed to breath in the scent, considering, before taking a shy sip of the liquid.

“He definitely knows, I promise,” Spider-Man said, as if that would make Michelle feel any better. “It relates to his powers, but I can’t  really  share more than that” Spider-Man added on,  cryptically.

Michelle had to respect that, at least.  In all their talkings, Spider-Man was for more careful when it came to information about the enhancements of various vigilantes, even more than he was of his own identity. It made sense, in a code of honor sort of way, that was definitely not at all an attractive quality he had. Nope, Michelle was not going there.

Outwardly, of course, Michelle feigned annoyance. She was curious, and wasn’t above trying to get more info  however  she could. “What’d you take me up here to see, anyways?” MJ finally asked, stretching out onto the blanket and looking up at the stars.  They were a tad clearer from up atop the buildings, but not by much - New York’s sky was more grey than anything, thanks to decades of pollutants.  Stark’s push towards green energy seemed to be helping, but it couldn’t exactly undo the CO2 that was already in the atmosphere.

Spider-Man moved over to sit beside her, and Michelle sucked in a breath as she realized  just  how close they were. “There’s a meteor shower, if you look right in that area you should be able to see it, if you’re patient.”  Spider-Man  gently  tilted Michelle’s head, his fingers gentle under her chin as he did so, helping her see a rhombus shape made up of a few stars.

It didn’t take long for the debris from the meteors to light up that small  portion  of the sky, and it took everything in Michelle’s power not to reach for Spider-Man’s hand as she looked up. They were friends, after all, but that was it. That would have to be enough for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out. I wasn't sure how I wanted to group the next few chapters, but I hope to get another chapter out very soon. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos go a long way towards motivating me to keep this fic going.


	15. Pizza

Michelle felt oddly comfortable laying beside Spider-Man on the roof, and had to fight to keep her eyes open. She felt incredibly comfortable around him, even more than she had around her (admittedly few) significant others. It was hard to be content as just friends with Spider-Man though. That was a fact that Michelle had to deal with. Finally, resigned to the fact that she would almost certainly fall asleep if she didn’t (who knew a rooftop would be so comfortable?), Michelle forced herself to sit up, and grabbed at her own food options, pulling some sliced apples and a bagel into her lap.

She looked beside her and took a moment to admire her star watching partner. Spider-Man was the perfect guy in so many ways, of course, and would potentially be perfect in all ways if not for the disgusting food choice he was currently making.

“You can’t count as a real New Yorker if you’re gonna eat things like that,” She sniped, her gaze focused the offending slice of pIzza that Spider-Man was wolfing down. (As a side note, Michelle realized, wow, Spider-Man ate fast. And ate a lot, judging by the sub sandwich in his lap.)

Spider-Man laughed, and affected a haughty tone. “Pineapple Pizza, I’ll have you know, is the culmination of human progress. To not like it makes you a bad human, which I’m far more scared of being than a bad New Yorker”.

Michelle couldn’t help but laugh at the theatrics, but was also suddenly very invested in Spider-Man’s (almost certainly incorrect) logic. “Alright, fine. Why pineapple pizza, Spidey?”

“I’m tempted to make up some bullshit about my taste buds, but I liked it before I was Spider-Man, even. Pepperoni and Cheese are sort of boring, so I normally stick to Hawaiian or Sausage.”

Michelle laughed softly at that. “We'll circle back to that taste bud comment, by the way," she teased, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You still got me a Cheese slice, though,” she added, taking a bite of it. It was a little cold, but still pretty good. 

Spider-Man just grinned, and Michelle got the feeling that he rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome to my Pizza, if you actually want it.” He acquiesced.

“I’m fine. I do have a question, though, not about Pizza,” MJ said, finishing off the crust of her slice as she waited for a response.

“Shoot.” Spider-Man said, taking a sip from his water.

The rooftop feels quieter all of a sudden, and Michelle takes a moment to look skyward, the faint meteor shower easy to see now that she knows where in the sky she can find it.“What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you as Spider-man?” Michelle asked. At this point, her questions weren’t even about trying to get relevant information anymore - she was just enjoying her discussions with Spider-man, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“One time, though, this one takes the cake,” Spider-Man was already laughing at this own story, and he paused for a moment, catching his breath. “Some mobster tried to spray me with a can of RAID.”

Michelle couldn’t stop her own laughter at that mental image, and then stopped herself. “Did it…” she trailed off, and let out another laugh. “Did it work?”

Spider-Man was laughing too hard to answer at first, but he eventually seemed to calm down. “Not as well as he wanted, no. I give the guy points for creativity, but it was comparable to using sunscreen, to be honest. A bit more annoying than actually effective.”

“That’s… something,” Michelle finally responded, a little bit lost for why someone would even think that would work.

“Another time I had to help another Vigilante out while they were getting mugged, which was really funny. Something similar has happened to me though, so it evens out,” Spider-Man supplied, if only to ease Michelle’s awkwardness. MJ didn’t even try to hide her laugh at the idea of a civilian Spider-man being defended by Daredevil or Jessica Jones.

“How many people know your real identity?” She asked. It was something she had been thinking of a lot recently, especially since she realized she uh, maybe liked him.

Spider-Man placed a hand on his chin, and pondered for a moment. “That I know of? Just the defenders, really. One or two other vigilantes. But I don’t think all of them have even seen me with my mask off,” he added, grinning. MJ was pretty sure she was missing a joke there, and so she pressed on.

“Which ones haven’t seen your face?” She asked, before putting up a finger in the universal gesture for ‘give me a second’. She wanted to guess. “Jessica Jones must have figured it out, with her whole PI thing.” Michelle paused thinking. “I guess Luke Cage hasn’t, or that Iron Fist guy you mentioned.” She decided aloud. “I mean, Daredevil must have, he’s got the whole ‘I see all’ thing down, right?”

Spider-Man laughed at that, for some reason that would likely be forever unknown to Michelle “Oh man, I’ll have to tell Double D that, huh? Nah, Daredevil only knows about the sinners of Hell’s Kitchen, and the only thing my face is is sinfully handsome.” Spider-Man pauses at that seeming to second guess his own joke. “Am I allowed to say that?” He asks.Dork.

Michelle lets out a quiet huff at that, and rolls her eyes.

“Mmm, sure. Not like I’d know if you were dead ugly,” Michelle sniped, as if she wasn’t incredibly invested in what Spider-Man looked like.

“I very well may be, but at least I’ve got abs,” Spider-Man laughed, shrugging off her comment.

“No friends or family know?”

Spider-Man went quiet, and Michelle was worried that she had crossed some kind of line - that Spider-Man was some Bruce Wayne type orphan whose parents deaths had led him to becoming Spider-Man. “Not really. The whole point of a secret identity is that they don’t know, anyways. Keeps them safer.”

While she wasn’t sure if that was the whole truth, Michelle knew better than to push. “Must be lonely,” she remarked instead, like that wasn’t the understatement of the century.

“You know any therapists for superheroes?” Spider-Man asked, a teasing tilt to his voice.

“I meant more someone you could brag to, actually. About the whole,” she points her wrists at the hero and made a little thwip noise, clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “Thing.”

Spider-Man laughed. “I don’t want to brag about any of this, no. My, uh, someone close to me always said that with great power comes great responsibility, you know? I just feel like it’s my job to help people, if that makes sense.”

“Wise,” Michelle remarked. It felt like it wasn’t enough of a reaction but really, what else can you really say to that?

“He was,” Spider-Man agreed, and Michelle felt like maybe she had crossed that line again. “I try to honor his memory every day I do this, you know? In theory, it would make things not as sad anymore.”

Michelle wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she nodded anyway, took another bite of her food. “I think you’ve got better things to do than let me waste your time, then” she remarked.

Spider-man just laughed, and offered a smile. “Eh, maybe. Nothing wrong with spending time with a friend, though.”

Somehow, MJ realized, that it had been just a few weeks ago that Spider-Man was on the roof. He had gone from being a fire escape up, to sitting right next to her, to even taking her for a swing, like he did tonight. It was a little surreal to sit next to him in such a familiar manner, but he had grown friendlier, like a stray spider being bribed by tea.

“Uh, yea”, Michelle replied, her heart leaping to her throat. “Are we?” She asks, because she _needs_ to hear it, and needs the confirmation. “Friends, I mean?” She asks softly, as if saying it too loud might change his mind.

“Oh course we are, MJ” Spider-Man says, and just like that, Michelle feels like she can’t even breathe.

“To be honest,” he goes on, and oh shit, there’s a to be honest. ‘To be honest’s are never good in Michelle’s experience, like the ’to be honest I don’t think you have what it takes to be a lawyer’ she got from that one professor second semester freshman year, or the ‘to be honest you were more of a rebound than anything’, because Michelle had horrid taste in men.

This ‘to be honest’ isn’t like those, though, Michelle realizes, as Spider-Man says “You’re probably my best friend, in and out of the suit.” Michelle has to puzzle over that last bit for a moment, before realizing that he just means that he doesn’t have many friends outside of the suit. She doesn't have many close friends either, so she'll have to revisit that statement later. 

So, seeing as she honestly isn’t sure her mouth remembers how to say works right now, she pushes herself into Spider-Man’s arms for a hug that she’s pretty sure lasts a few moments too long, but really, who is she to complain? Spider-Man is short, she realizes, pretty much the same 5'10 she is, much shorter than people seemed to think he was. 

Their hug, unfortunately, is interrupted by a yawn from Michelle, who is admittedly quite tired. Spider-Man slowly (and unfortunately) pulls away, and for a second, Michelle almost lets herself believe that he doesn’t want to pull away from the hug any more than she does. 

Spider-Man does take a peek at the time on a flip phone, and the next thing she knows the mask is back over her face as Spider-Man swings back towards Queens, and it’s all Michelle can do not to fall asleep before Spider-Man gets her back home, so she can at least pass out on her couch. Somehow, despite flying through the air at speeds of at least forty miles an hour she doesn't succeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get back into the swing of writing, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> Next time: More Peter!


	16. Walk

Michelle wakes up the next morning on her couch, which is not quite as comfy as she hoped it would be. The sun is just starting to rise, and she forces her drowsy body to turn over, pushing her face into the couch cushion in a feeble attempt to convince herself that _look, it’s still dark out, you can sleep_. She knows that she’ll be late to work, but Foggy and Matt have both been incredibly chill bosses thus far, and she can just tell them that she was stargazing last night, which is technically correct.

Unfortunately, Michelle’s plans of getting another few hours of sleep are halted by a loud knocking on the door, and a familiar voice. “MJ? You there?”

And yes, she was there, and even if she didn’t want to be hearing Peter Parker’s voice right this moment, she could do the right thing and answer the door anyways.

“Yeah?” She drawled, all but glaring at Parker as she opened the door. (What? Just because she knew what was the right didn’t mean she couldn’t be a little cranky)

Parker just grinned, and held up a thermos that smelled of tea, which Michelle made grabby hands for. “Foggy told me that you were on my way walking, and texted you,” Peter rambled, Michelle only half listening. She supposed it was better he had at least some good reason to know where she lived, but she wasn’t particularly worried in the first place. “And I was going to meet you outside,” Parker continued, “but he said that you weren’t responding, so I followed some random old dude into the building, and here I am,” Pater concluded. Michelle just rolled her eyes.

“No judgement nerd, especially if you’re gonna bring me tea. Give me a few minutes to get ready, and I’ll be right out? Feel free to sit on the couch, and all that,” Michelle waved her hand vaguely at said couch, already fast walking towards her bedroom.

Fortunately, she was able to get ready to a reasonable level of presentability within only a few minutes (thank you past Michelle, for laying out clothes the night before), and she grabbed a portable charger for her dead phone before walking back into her living room. Parker was seemingly right at home, scrolling through something on his StarkPhone as he munched on a bagel.

“Alright Parker, let’s get going. Foggy will have my hide if we’re late to this meeting I didn’t know we had,” she grumbled, taking a long sip of her tea. A small tea leaf or two definitely made its way down her throat with the rest of the drink, but she needed to caffeine so badly she didn’t even mind. Besides, that was supposed to be good luck or something, she thought. She couldn’t remember, Acadec had been a long time ago.

Peter was actually a great conversationalist, Michelle realized, and he had been more than willing to share his bagels on the walk towards Nelson and Murdock’s, even as he began to polish off a second and third. Either way, she had managed to learn a lot more about her ex-classmate: He had just graduated from Empire State with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, was hoping to hear back from Stark Industries about a potential internship within the week, and had just received word that Jameson actually did intend to sue, and soon, which was the reason he actually needed to have the meeting today, and on such short notice.

Michelle also learned that he was still taking pictures of Spider-Man with the limited time he had.

(For a moment, Michelle is scared that maybe he knows that Spider-Man has been visiting her. She does her best to dismiss the thought, but struggles to do so. It’s not like her meeting/talks/dates(?) are a secret or anything, but she’s genre aware enough to realize that maybe people knowing that Spider-Man cares about her is a bad way for her to stay safe. Parker doesn’t seem like the type who can keep a secret to save his life though, so she figures he doesn’t know, and asking anything about it would only make him suspicious.)

In return, she tells Peter a few stories about some of their friends from freshman year. She talks about the week where Ned and Betty broke up and got back together at least half a dozen times, for reasons no one quite understands. They’re practically engaged now though, so the stories are more funny than awkward, like their relationship in high school had been. She also tells Peter about the time that she convinced Flash that Spider-Man was clearly a Midtown teacher, which Peter seems to find that one especially funny. Before either of them know it, they’re passing the cafe they first met at on MJ’s first day of work, and Peter is promising himself to reach back out to Ned.

“You know,” Michelle says at that, wearing the special glint in her eyes she only has when she knows something someone else doesn’t. “You could probably sell him and Betty some pictures of Spider-Man. I heard through the grapevine they’re working on another feature for the AP, and the budget they’re being given…” she trails off with a whistle. All that is true - Ned and Betty’s article had made them some of the youngest ever Pulitzer nominees, thanks in equal parts to Ned’s commitment to open data and just how thorough Betty had been in her writing.

Peter laughs, and stops for a moment, seeming to consider. “I’ll have to reach out, see how Ned’s doing. It’s been way too long.”

“You have any uh, good photos to sell?” Michelle asks, because even if she told herself that she wasn’t going to ask anything suspicious, she’s curious, damn it.

To her relief, Parker does not, he’d been too busy prepping for the interview with SI and then catching up on sleep to go trying to take pictures, which she’s secret glad about.

Fortunately, their timing saves Michelle from having to come up with a non-sketchy response to that, as they climb the steps up to the office. She’s not quite sure what the rest of the day holds for her, but she’s pretty she that she and Peter can handle it. It's weird, suddenly feeling that way about someone she didn't even hold in medium regard a week ago, but that's hardly the craziest thing that's happened recently. Besides, she really does feel like she can trust him, far more than she expected. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoy! A little bit more time spent between MJ and Peter, which I've wanted to add for a while. 
> 
> One question I have is how people would feel about me writing an excerpt from Ned and Betty's article, and either adding it to the series or as another chapter, like the social media one. Let me know what you think!


	17. Date

Foggy seems delighted this morning, and Michelle really can’t tell why. She and Peter are late, and they’re busy with another day of prepping for the bullshit case Jameson still seems insistent on running. The reason Foggy is so happy, Michelle eventually realizes, is that he got a phone call from Marci Stahl that morning, he finally explains - Jameson had attempted to contract their legal services (which she’s pretty sure wouldn’t have been provided anyways), and had even said that since he would be sticking Parker with the Lawyers fees after the case anyways, they were welcome to over-bill him or whatever. Michelle was disgusted. Neither Matt nor Foggy seemed surprised, which was… also gross. 

Evidently, based on the forwarded email that had been promptly sent over at Foggy’s request, Jameson hadn’t learned anything about a paper trail since Parker posted things online. 

“He never did get that he couldn’t control the full narrative, did he?” Parker had asked between fits of laughter. 

Matt and Foggy agreed that he did not, as had Michelle. And really, the case was looking even more cut and dry after that, as it became clear that Jameson’s case was motivated more by revenge than anything, which would probably make a judge even less sympathetic. So really, the case felt even more shut today than it did yesterday. From there, they mostly worked on coaching Peter (when had be become Peter before Parker, Michelle wondered) towards how to answer whatever questions Jameson would spit at him from the mouth of whatever hack lawyer he’d be paying. Matt seemed convinced it would be Bert Hindel, although she still couldn’t tell if he was joking quite yet. 

Matt takes Peter aside just before lunch, and they talk through some more personal things, apparently, before Foggy shoos both Peter and MJ out the door. “Always good to see you these days, Pete,” Matt is saying to Peter, holding his hand out to shake his hand. “And good luck with your interview in two days, if I don’t see you before then,” he added, at which point Foggy and Karen promptly groaned at the joke. Peter found it hilarious though, and forewent the handshake to pull Matt into a hug instead. 

Michelle had intended to go to the same cafe that they normally ate at, an option Peter did not seem excited about. “Nope,” he said, tugging on her hand as he led her towards a main road, his eyes locked on a pizza cart. Michelle laughed, and tugged her hand away to run ahead of him to the cart. Peter laughed and followed quickly, but he let her win their impromptu race. 

“Whaddya want?” Stan, their less-than-friendly Pizza cart man asked, idly scrolling through his phone with a gloved hand as he waited for her decision. 

“I’ll get a Hawaiian,” She said with far more confidence than she felt she had, “just a slice,” she added, before gesturing at Peter to order. He did so - he wanted the same, but wasn’t excited about the fact that Michelle indicated she would pay. Parker grumbled at that, but didn’t stop her.

"Not gonna pay for your girlfriend, son?" Stan asks as he pushes the slice of pizza over the counter on a napkin towards MJ, before cutting Peter's slice. 

"We're uh, just friends, sir," Peter stuttered, before grabbing his own slice and power walking towards a bench. 

“I owe you pizza now,” Peter said as they ate on the bench, trying to keep a napkin from blowing away by pressing his knees together. He looked kind of cute, Michelle had to admit, as he focused on folding the slice of Pizza without making too much of a mess. 

“Nah, it cost me like, four bucks. You’ve gotta save what you can, in case Jameson tries to make you reimburse him for something or another,” MJ teased, sitting down as well.

Peter seemed to decide that was at least somewhat fair. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, as if he was in any state to make decisions for anyone while he grabbed at the napkin the started to blow away. “I have that SI interview in two days, and if I get it, I’ll owe you a slice. Deal?” 

Michelle shrugged. “Sure.” She wasn’t about to turn down an offer for free pizza, and Peter wasn’t the worst company. They make a bit of small talk for a while, and as it turns out Peter had never realized that Ned Leeds, the guy who co-wrote [“An Analysis of Spider-Man”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24768100), had been Peter’s best friend before he changed schools. 

“We uh, drifted apart after I had to move, I guess,” Peter said, stilted. “It’s good to know he’s doing well, but… it’s hard,” Peter said. “We were inseparable, but with Ben, and how May got sick…” Peter trailed off, before stopping himself. “Sorry, you shouldn’t have to hear me rant. I’m glad he’s doing well though!” Peter’s face may have had a smile, but Michelle could read past a fake one with ease, and Peter wasn’t a particularly great liar. 

Eventually, Peter does have to go review for his internship evaluation, and Michelle realizes that she just took a 90 minute lunch break, and hurries back to the office. As she fast walks back, she pointedly ignores Stan the Pizza man, because the idea of dating her first high school crush isn't something she wants to consider.

In all honesty, Peter had become a solid conversationalist and was fairly interesting, a real step up from his awkwardness in their freshman year. Well, being less awkward was the step up, Michelle had always found Peter fairly interesting, even if she didn't find Stark Industries nearly as cool as he did. In hindsight, their conversation almost felt like a date, and MJ’s stomach feels a bit funny as she admits that to herself, seeing as she is definitely… talking(?) to Spider-Man. She feels scummy about talking to them both, even if nothing official is going on.

She’s later than she should be, when she gets back to the office, she knows, and stops to catch her breath right outside, before slowly pushing the door open. Maybe, if she’s lucky, Foggy and Matt are otherwise occupied, and she won’t get caught - the door creaks. Not that it seems to matter, as Foggy and Matt and on the couch talking, and they both perk up at the sound of the door. 

Michelle should probably be happy that they don’t seem too mad about her having taken so long, but the next question makes her regret having taken so long all the same. 

“Hey, MJ. How was your date?” Foggy asks, a smirk on his face that she was pretty sure implied full well that he at least a bit of what was going on. Michelle had only known Foggy for about a week, but the Dad vibes were undeniable, and she wasn’t about to have this discussion with him, especially as it _hadn’t been a date_. At least, not an official one. 

With that question asked, and the sheer embarrassment as she thought through how to answer, maybe she’d have preferred to have been yelled at about being late. “It wasn’t a date, we were just talking,” she said, because that was an easier explanation than the fact that she _might_ have been dating Spider-Man, she was realizing. Or at least gone on a date with him, maybe? It was all confusing, and MJ did not have to emotional capacity to handle all of it at the moment.

“Isn’t talking what you kids just call early dating, these days?” Matt chimes in, wearing a smirk that matches Foggy’s. “Hell, Foggy and I were ‘talking’ for quite a while too, before we figured things out,” he says, holding up their joined hands in demonstration. 

(That certainly answers a question that Michelle did have, although she doesn’t really have time to unpack it at the moment. She had just assumed that Foggy was an affectionate guy and that Matt’s blindness kept him close to his partner in law, really)

“I, uh..” Michelle begins. “Peter’s nice, but I don’t think that was a date.” Peter seems like the type to insist on paying for a first date anyways. 

“Just make sure not to break Pete’s heart, MJ. Now let’s get back to work on this case these poor tenants from Bed Stuy brought out our way - you just missed them,” Foggy offers, sliding a printed sheet of notes her way across the table. Michelle knows an out when she sees one, and attacks the documentation with glee.

Some new landlord had taken over an apartment building, and was trying to raise rent on leases that were still in progress. From the sounds of the statements Foggy and Matt were getting, the new owners had a less than legal solution: Hiring some thugs to break things in the apartment units, in an attempt to force the lease to be broken. 

It’s a pretty scummy situation and there may not be much Matt and Foggy (and her, Michelle realizes, as she passes the couple on the couch across from her a few legal precedents in both print and braille) can do without better proof. Either way, come five thirty Michelle starts her walk back towards her apartment, and picks up a slice of Hawaiian pizza from Stan for dinner on the way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this slightly longer chapter! 
> 
> If you're looking for more info about Ned and Betty's article, you can check it out at https://archiveofourown.org/works/24768100. 
> 
> And just like in the article, I'm putting a small nod towards worldbuilding into this chapter in the form of a comic's reference - let me know if you find it!


	18. Midnight

MJ is still tired when she makes it back to her apartment, which she’s determined to blame entirely on Spider-Man. Due to her lack of sleep this week, she can hardly keep her eyes open. How Spider-Man manages MJ has no idea, but she imagines it involves a lot of naps. She’s definitely going to sleep, but doesn't want Spidey to think she’s ditching, or something. She takes a small sticky note and scrawls a note on it as legibly as she can (Need to get rest, talk tomorrow? -MJ), before attaching it to the outside of her window.

Hopefully Spider-Man sees it and doesn’t think that she’s annoying him or something, but she really does need that nap. She falls asleep on the couch again, not even bothering to make it back to her room. It might only be eight-thirty, but she’s had a long day, and deserves the rest she can get. She falls asleep to the sound of the rain.

She plans to sleep for at least twelve hours, and wake up only a little early the next morning. That doesn’t happen, and instead the window slams open at around midnight, and Spider-Man comes through it quickly, clutching a soggy sticky note. MJ sits up like a rocket, and Spider-Man’s head swivels so fast to look at her that Michelle thinks his neck might break. He’s already lowered himself into a fighting stance, one wrist pointed at her and the other balled into a fist. For a moment Michelle, is reminded exactly how dangerous Spider-Man is, and then the destructive energy seems to disappear all at once, and then Spider-Man takes a breath. He slowly stands, and takes a deep breath.

“I’m uh, sorry.” He says, holding up the now-crumpled note. “It was messed up from the rain, and I wasn’t sure if you were okay. Assumed it was a ransom note or something,” he explains, like that’s normal. “Villains have tried to go after people I… care about before, and…” he trails off, but it’s explanation enough. Michelle tactfully ignores the part where Spider-Man makes it clear that she is someone he cares about, and moves to stand, if only to reassure Spider-Man that she is okay.

“I’m fine, Spidey, but I appreciate you checking on me,” She says softly, taking a seat back on the end of the couch closer to Spider-Man. “My note just said I was going to be sleeping, I’ve been super tired, staying up too late because of _someone_ ,” she teases, the jab halfhearted. The fact that she’s still tired is the reason for that of course, and not that she doesn’t want to insult Spider-Man.

“Sorry about that, MJ. It’s just been really good getting to know you,” Spider-Man says. “I can go if you’d like, I just don’t have much else going on,” and if that doesn’t peak her interest.

“No patrol?” She asks, because as far as she knows, Spider-Man hasn’t missed a patrol in years, even on holidays like New Year's or Christmas.

(That’s one of the main reasons that Michelle thinks that Spider-Man is single, actually. Just about anyone sane seems to want to spend the entire time on those days, or at least on their anniversaries without going out to beating up criminals. The idea that Spider-Man is skipping patrol but not seeing her makes her feel… a way. But that’s not important)

Spider-Man affirms. “Double D, err, Daredevil is covering for me. I’ve got some important personal things coming up in the near future, so unless things are bad, he’s got the situation handled for me.”

“You two do know each other out of costume, then?” MJ asks, because that does seem like the logical conclusion. Spider-Man cautiously admits as much, and moves to sit down on the floor, shutting the window as he does so.

“Just sit on the couch, Spidey,” Michelle tells him, shifting to give him room closer to the window.“I won’t be able to fall asleep for a while anyways, you might as well give me some company.”

Spider-Man laughs and does so, but Michelle has to admit he looks weird on the couch instead of in one of his weird crouching or hanging positions. It was like seeing your teacher at the grocery store, except instead it was your world famous super-hero crush sitting on your couch instead of a fire escape.

“Sorry for pretty much breaking in here, MJ, and for waking you and… all that,” Spider-Man murmured, seeming far more awkward than MJ imaged he could.

“You’re fine, Spidey, really. Stop thinking so loud. I probably would have messed up my sleep schedule even more, and woken up at four or something,” she said, as if that made things better.

“You said Daredevil is patrolling for you tonight, but what’s a normal patrol even like?” She asks, because Spidey being awkward just makes her feel awkward, and she doesn’t need that kind of energy right now.

“Boring,” Spidey laughs. “Unless I have a lead I’m working on, it’s mostly just being visible enough to deter crime. Criminals are scared of me now, for the most past,” Spider-Man explained. That made sense - the mere presence of Spider-Man in a burrow was typically a major deterrent to crime there, a phenomenon that made a lot of sense to anyone who had ever seen Spider-Man in person, yet none to academics.

“So Daredevil just has to go around and be seen?” Michelle asked. “And that’ll work too?” She was a bit doubtful, Spider-Man’s reputation was far more well known.

Spider-Man just laughed. “I’m nice compared to Double D, and crooks all know it. Queens will be silent for at least three days, after he’s spotted today.” That was… frightening, almost. Daredevil had been intimidating when MJ had interacted with him, but for him to scare members of mobs like that was something else.

For a second Spider-Man stops, and then he tilts his head for a moment, like he’s thinking. “Did you eat Pizza twice today?” He asks, completely out of the blue.

Michelle stops. She did. Spider-Man doesn’t seem like the stalking type (despite what a tabloid a week claims), which leaves the question of how he can tell. She decides to ask as much - “I uh, I did. How can you tell?”

Spider-Man just grins. “You’ll have to guess, MJ. I can’t just go telling people these things, can I?” He asks, and he’s _teasing_ , Michelle can tell, dramatically laying down on the couch with a hand resting behind his head.

Michelle wasn’t sure how to even go about guessing, so she thought she what she knew about Spider-Man, and eventually realized it had to involve his enhanced senses.

“It’s got to do with your sniffer, doesn’t it?” She asked, reaching down to poke Spider-Man’s nose. Touches like this were _probably_ platonic, she reminded herself, but pulled her hand back quickly all the same, as if she had just touched a hot stove.

Spider-Man simply sighed. “You’re too smart for your own good, MJ. I’m pretty sure you’ll be the first non-vigilante to figure out my identity, too. Assuming you don’t already know?” Michelle doubted that she was that close. Really, she felt like she was no closer to finding it than she was before they met. She’s learned more about _Peter Parker_ than about Spider-Man, since she moved into her apartment, really.

Instead of admit that, of course, she arched an eyebrow. “Don’t think I could pull off the Spandex, Spidey?” She teased back, and teasing Spider-Man a little bit was fun, huh.

Spider-Man seemed to choke at that, and took a moment to compose himself. He looked her up and down once, as if he was actually considering it.

“It’s more that I know you could pull it off, but it doesn’t seem like it’s your style,” he finally decided, as if that wasn’t a groundbreaking compliment to receive from New York’s Heart-throb.

Michelle tried to hide her blush in her own cup of tea, taking a much longer drink than she probably should, before rolling her eyes. “I bet you say that to all the pretty girls,” she replied, more on reflex than anything, and as if she hadn’t had at least some semblance of a crush on him for almost a decade, now.

(And yes, she could admit it, okay? No one asked who a girl’s first celebrity crush was anymore, they asked who their first was after Spider-Man. She's perfectly entitled to have a crush on him as well, even if they're friends.)

“To all the pretty boys too,” Spider-Man says with a grin, and oh right, he was openly bisexual, because donning spandex and fighting crime nightly for almost a decade didn’t make you perfect enough.

“But,” Spider-Man enunciated, and pointed a finger at her like it was a conductor’s wand. “Only the really pretty ones, so you’ve got great company”

Michelle didn’t even bother to hide her blush at that comment, and had to remind herself that the person who had set up what may have been a rooftop date was also capable of being Spider-Man: _Media Edition_ , the obnoxious flirt who saw the best in anyone, and tactfully avoided relationship questions by claiming that his one and only love was the city of New York itself.

It wasn’t really him, she reasoned, and tried not to get her hopes up. Instead. She smiled at him shyly, and faked a yawn, poorly. “I really should get some rest,” she lied. “I hope you understand.” Spider-Man nodded at that, and offered a cheeky two fingered salute and a mumbled an “of course”. As soon as he had arrived he was gone, jumping off the fire escape and swing back into the streets of New York.

Michelle worried if she had hurt the poor guy’s feelings, but she needed time to think either way. And okay, she did need the sleep, she realized, as she drifted off far faster than she expected to, even as she thought of what it would feel like to kiss Spider-Man.

The next day when Michelle woke up, the only thing any news station or online anything seemed to care about was the giant “SORRY” webbed to the Queensboro bridge. Michelle had a feeling, as her heart sunk, that the message was for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drama! Peter and MJ are two oblivious dorks, and neither of them are doing a good job at talking through the fact that they just wanna kiss already. I have a feeling plenty of readers feel that way, too. 
> 
> Let me know what you think of this chapter!


	19. Forgiveness

Michelle doesn’t really know what to do about the whole Spider-Man situation. She didn’t need to be a genius (even if she sort of was, at least academically) to realize that Spider-Man was almost certainly apologizing to her. For what though, was the question - Michelle had been the one who made a mistake, after all, behaving as awkwardly as she always did and pushing Spider-Man away.

Spider-Man had been fine, really, had even been nicer than normal. He had nothing to apologize for. But instead of showing him the same kindness back, Michelle had shut him out, and Spider-Man had for some reason felt that he had been the one who erred.

Her walk to work was lonely that day, especially as she passed under the bridge, where tufts of webbing floated on the water, the rest hanging in shame, an apology already dissolving into thin air. It was probably because of the awkwardness, of course, that MJ missed Peter Parker’s chatter more than she had expected to. She clearly just needed a distraction, and okay, Parker had been fun to catch up with. But still, she didn’t _miss_ talking to him or anything, that would be silly. MJ did hope that Matt and Foggy could ensure that the case went well - Jameson and the Bugle were scum on earth as far as she was concerned, especially as she spotted a copy of it claiming that “Spider-Man apologizes to New York for his Murders”.

(Exactly which murders were of course unspecified, and Michelle had a feeling Matt and Foggy would be excited to submit that headline as evidence)

Michelle couldn’t say much of anything about how her day at work went, a feeling she hadn’t felt in a while. Eventually, the hours ticked by, and the work day was over. MJ’s head still felt like it was spinning and she wasn’t sure exactly how much she had contributed to work today, but Foggy seemed pleased enough, and told MJ that she was doing a great job so far. Foggy and Matt both seemed a little on edge as well, but MJ wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Karen would make sure they didn't miss any major deadlines, anyways.

As she crossed Queensboro bridge once more on her walk home, her phone buzzed with a text, which was odd. There wasn’t anyone she knew of who would ever have reason to text her, aside from Foggy, who seemed to prefer texting to email. And sure, Matt could _technically_ text, but that didn't seem likely at all. 

Sure enough, the text was from neither of them, nor was it from her parents (as if that was expected, either). Instead, it was from a number neither she nor her phone recognized, which made sense once she read the message:

**Hey MJ, this is Spidey. Sorry about yesterday. I owe you a tea and a slice of Pizza?**

And _huh_. Spider-Man thought that he had done something wrong yesterday? That was consistent with how willing he had been to leave, Michelle supposed. It was still weird. The thought that this wasn’t Spider-Man and was instead some sort of prank went through Michelle’s mind, but she all but dismissed it just as quickly as it had been considered - the text used both a nickname that only a few people knew of and a reference to specific food choices. Besides, it felt genuine, and _okay_ , she wanted it to be Spidey.

She power walked the rest of the way to her apartment, thankful as ever that her read receipts were off. (Why anyone would let people know that they had read a text she didn't understand, really.) She needed time to think before she said something else that was awkward and pushed Spider-Man away forever. Her mind wandered as she thought through the situation, even as she tried to stop herself from doing so. MJ knew that she really should try to reach out to someone to get advice on the matter, but explaining the situation would be too complex.

Besides, the only person she could really think to reach out to for love advice (yes, this was love advice, Michelle could admit) was Betty, which was a poor plan even ignoring that weird on-again off-again thing she and Ned seemed to always be on. Betty was too sharp not to realize that Michelle and her mystery-friend had some relation to Spider-Man going full Charlotte’s Web, so that was out of the question anyways.

When she finally did make it home, MJ was still unsure what to do about the situation, so she did what she always did: she worked to take an unbiased view of the situation. It was difficult, distancing herself from the complex web (heh) of her emotions, but it was admittedly helpful.

It seemed most likely that Spider-Man had thought that she was uncomfortable with him being around, which was why he wanted to apologize. She reread the message, and as brief as it was, that seemed like a reasonable conclusion. But humans were messy, emotions even more so. That was why Michelle had always tried to stay away from friendships, after all.

And yet with Spider-Man, growing close to him had always felt natural. Eventually, Michelle forced herself to take a deep breath and finally type out a reply.

**Hey, Spidey. You’ve got nothing to apologize for, but I’ll never turn down Pizza or tea.**

She got a reply within minutes, not that she was counting.

**That’s good to hear. I found a tea that I think you’ll like. ::::)**

She had no idea what the end of the message meant, but she lived the idea of tea.

Her phone buzzed a second time a few seconds later.

**Sorry, that’s a smiley face with eight eyes. Bad joke.**

**You’re good. How can I know this is Spider-Man, though?**

She texted back, as if anyone else would really be texting her, or even know to pretend they were Spidey. How Spider-Man got her number was a second question, but he had done far more impressive things than figure that out, so MJ wasn’t going to worry about it. A read receipt appeared after a few moments (and at least she wasn't being ignored, MJ was glad to see), and a text followed. The text was just a picture of a web shooter, with a sticky note beside it and a canister of some kind of liquid on the other side. The sticky note had a hastily scrawled series of numbers on it that matched the number she was getting texts from, so she added it to her contact list.

(Michelle knew enough from Peter’s reddit posts to store it as “S” instead of as "Spider-Man", out of respect for the whole secret identity thing).

With the confirmation that this was in fact Spider-Man and (most likely) not some creepy kidnapper, MJ typed back her own message, and time started to fly by again, just like when she and Spider-Man were able to talk in person. As they continued to text it grew late, a dinner of some microwaved soup and a few work documents to read over passing by in a haze as MJ continued to text like a lovesick teen. Spider-Man was fun to talk to, and he had a witty, yet slightly self-deprecating sense of humor over text that MJ found herself meshing with in a way she hadn’t really done with anyone before, aside from _u/BannersEighthPHD_ (and oh right, that was Peter. Maybe he and Spider-Man would actually get along? Or maybe she just got along best with a certain type of person).

Eventually, her phone buzzed with a more serious message:

**I’ve got a personal thing that starts early tomorrow, but I’d be happy to meet you to get that slice of Pizza I owe you in the evening?**

She typed back quickly, taking careful breaths to try to calm herself.

**Are you asking me on a date, nerd?**

She was almost certain that he was, but it was hard to be sure.

**Yea.**

**Mind if I pick you up as a civilian? I wanted to wait until you figured it out on your own, but I’m a bit impatient, sorry.**

She had never texted so quickly, which of course meant that several fixed typos later, she was finally able to send the reply she wanted to. 

**That’s fine, Spidey. I’ll see you tomorrow after I’m done with work? I have a feeling you know where to pick me up?**

**I’ll see you outside your office around 5:15. I think you'll know it's me. ::::)**

This time, Michelle couldn’t help but laugh at the emoji. Spider-Man was a dork, and she was pretty sure she loved him for it.

MJ went to bed early that night, and only fell asleep because of how exhausted she still was.

* * *

Michelle wasn’t a fan of makeup, but she was still definitely going to wear at least a little bit for her date with Spider-Man’s mysterious civilian identity. Thankfully, she was good enough at what she did need to apply to be okay, and she made her way to work, hoping to do at least a slightly better job at actually helping today.

Thankfully, Foggy and Matt (and Karen, whose mother-henning today was likely because Matt looked like he hadn't slept in the past week) managed to find her enough to do, and she hadn’t even realized that she had worked through lunch until Karen slid her a bag of chips across the desk. It was 3:00, MJ realized as she ate, before quickly getting back to work. She got through almost all of what she wanted to be 4:45, when a buzzing alarm from her phone reminded her that she should probably start to wrap things up.

Foggy and Matt had never been sticklers about time, so by the time it was 5:03, Michelle headed to the bathroom to freshen up. (And yes, she was nervous, but she had peed and double checked her makeup and her breath and she was _ready_ ).

And so at five past five, because Michelle was never late to anything, she took a deep breath, and pushed open the door to Nelson and Murdock’s, ready to go on a date with with Spider-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw the ::::) in another fic, but I can't remember which one, unfortunately. If someone knows, I'll put the link here. 
> 
> We're finally starting to make progress! The next (and final) chapter has the date, and I hope all of you are as excited as I am!
> 
> This has been a lot of fun to write so far, and I definitely intend to work to flesh out this AU some more. 
> 
> If you have any ideas for a oneshot feel free to comment them below, and I might just write them! For the next multi-chapter work, I'm torn between writing the next work in Peter's POV or someone else's. Let me know what you think!


	20. Peter

MJ really shouldn’t be surprised by this, but she still is. Because as she walks down the steps from Nelson and Murdock’s onto the street, it’s _Peter Parker_ of all people that she sees. 

He has earbuds in and is wearing a button down shirt and jeans, which would make anyone who wasn’t moonlighting as Spider-Man look professional, even with the backpack slung over his shoulder. 

The problem for Peter is that the shirt that looks like it should probably be white is instead stained a little stained pink, and his hair is an absolute mess. His backpack, Michelle realizes, almost certainly has his Spider-Man suit in it, and probably his web shooters too. How he went about ten years without people knowing his identity will forever be a mystery, she supposes. 

The relation of Peter being Spider-Man comes with a lot to process, too. For starters Spider-Man is her age, twenty four, and has been beating up criminals since he was fourteen. That’s a thought that MJ can’t really handle right now, but she supposes it’s better than him actually being fifty-something. That would be gross. 

It only takes a moment, from there, for all of the puzzle pieces to slot into place, her realization of Spider-Man’s identity answering a dozen questions Michelle had wondered for years, and a hundred more she didn’t know she was curious about. 

Spider-Man explained why Peter Parker had started to come to school freshman year with bruises on his knuckles and bags under his eyes, and why he had eventually dropped out and just gotten his GED. It explained why he got a community college undergraduate degree, from a school known for online classes. At the same time, it was Peter Parker explained how Spider-Man was able to develop such high tech tools, and Spider-Man had the same inherent _goodness_ that Peter had always shown. And suddenly, the reason that Peter missed things like the Academic Decathlon made sense, as did his obsession with the importance of a secret identity. 

In that moment of clarity, MJ realizes that had she understood this relation sooner, had she just bothered to pull her nose from a book and _look_ at the world around her, she would have fallen in love with Peter Parker almost a decade ago when they went to Midtown. 

“You must think you’re hilarious, don’t you,” MJ says, playfully punching Peter in the arm, because at this point she figures that they’re at least a little past small talk. 

Peter just grins. “A bit, yeah. I hardly ever get to tell anyone, so excuse me for being a tad dramatic.” He laughed. He stops for a second, examining Michelle. Then, softer, he continues. “Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” MJ says, somewhat surprised to actually mean that. “You owe me another slice of Pizza, though. And I have a lot of questions, Parker,” she teases. 

Peter smiles, awkwardly putting away his earbuds as he starts to walk with her. He’s acting far more awkward than Michelle is used to, for some reason. Whether Peter was being himself or Spider-Man, Michelle time with him felt far more comfortable. 

“You good?” She asks, gently taking her hand in hers as they start walking. Where they’re going she isn’t sure quite yet, but that’s not the end of the world. 

Peter hums for a moment, and squeezes her hand as they keep walking. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just a bit thrown off. Let’s get you that Pizza,” he says, which Michelle can’t argue with. 

Their walk is mostly quiet, which isn’t as awkward as Michelle expected it to be. She feels oddly comfortable around Peter, even now that she knows that he’s been keeping a secret from her. It’s probably that she really does know him well, and understands him more than she expects to. 

They end up at Stan’s pizza cart again, and this time Stan just smirks at them, and she realizes that this time they’re actually on a date, or at least, they both know it’s a date. They both get Pineapple, which Stan doesn’t seem to approve of, and Peter makes MJ let him pay, which Stan seems to approve of a good bit more. They go sit on a bench and then their hands find each other again, even as awkward as it is to try to eat their pizza slices with just one hand. 

It’s nice, MJ finds, and eventually they wipe their faces but don’t get up. There’s a bit more small talk: Peter says his interview at Stark Industries went okay and that he hears back in a few days about whether he got the position at all. He applied to work doing chemical engineering, which makes sense, and carefully dodges the difficulties that would come from being Spider-Man and working an office job in a building that takes security so seriously. 

“Alright,” MJ declares soon after, "Spider-Man time," because she really does have so many questions to ask. Peter laughs, absently shifting his backpack as she brings up the topic. 

“Sure, what’s up?” He asks, as if MJ will be convinced for a second that he’s being casual. 

It takes a moment to come up with a good enough question, for some reason. Eventually, Michelle settles on one, if only to break the tension. ”What’s the weirdest theory you’ve ever heard about yourself?” she asks, keeping her voice low as she lets Peter play with her fingers. 

Peter seems to ponder for a moment, before finally deciding. “Someone once claimed that Daredevil and I are the same person, and Daredevil is the persona I use to work out my anger issues.”

Michelle raised an eyebrow - she remembered reading that theory, what, three years ago? “I assume it isn’t true?” She asked, teasing. She knew enough to know that the pair were sometimes seen working together, and had at least slightly different powers. 

“Nah. And you know Daredevil, actually,” Peter grins. “I don’t think he’d mind if I told you who, come to think of it.” He pretends to ponder, but Michelle can tell he won’t. She’s gotten good at reading Spider-Man even with his mask on, and without it, she feels like Peter is baring his soul to her with every word and facial expression. 

“I know very few people,” she teases back, and smiles. “Honestly, I should have realized who you are way sooner,” she says, even if she isn’t so sure. 

“My jobs as both Spider-Man’s photographer and Spider-Man seem to confuse people an awful lot,” Peter agrees, a twinkle in his eye. 

“Who all knows?” Michelle asks, because it sounds like more people know than she expected. 

“My Aunt May, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and the Hawkeyes?” Peter says, counting them off with his free hand. “Oh - and Nelson and Murdock, along with other associates of the Vigilantes.” 

That is… a lot more people than Michelle expected. “Sounds like a decent number. And did I mishear, or did you say plural Hawkeyes? Do they have some identical twin thing?” She asks. 

“Not twins, just two different people. Both very similar though, I’m honestly not sure how distinct they are. You'll get along way too well with Kate, actually," he says, offhand, like that means anything to her. 

"My Aunt is going to want to host a Vigilantes and Friends Barbecue soon,” he adds, which sounds a little crazy, but that's how it is. “You’re the reasons she wants to, guest of honor, all that. If you’d uh… like that, of course. To continue dating, and all that.”

For someone known for quippy one liners and having nothing but confidence, Peter really is incredibly awkward. Michelle feels herself blush all the same, and squeezes Peter’s hand in response. “Yeah, I’d like that. Meet all your super friends, team up with Matt and Foggy to get one or two more of them to start using Nelson and Murdock.” 

Peter found that very funny, but refused to tell her why. They continued to talk for a while longer, and eventually it got late, the streetlamp coming on to illuminate the park. 

Peter offers to swing her back to the apartment, and Michelle can tell just how excited he is to do so. Unfortunately for Peter, though, Michelle does not have a death wish, so instead she decides that she’s going to walk, but Peter is welcome to join her. He decides that sounds fair enough, and they decide to do just that. 

It’s darker by the time they’re back at the Queensboro bridge, cars speeding by as they walk slowly. A day ago, tufts of webbing floated in the East River, remnants of an apology that Peter didn’t even owe her. Today, she crosses the bridge with his hand in hers, and she’s pretty sure this is a better way for things to be. 

Of course, that’s when it all seems to go wrong. There’s the sound of an explosion in Midtown Manhattan, and Michelle gets to watch Peter _roll his eyes_ before sighing. 

“That’s you, isn’t it?” She asks, because if you’re going to date a superhero, this is probably just going to be par for the course. 

Peter nods. “Yeah, sorry. I had a really great time today though, I’ll get you a tea sometime soon?” 

Michelle just laughs. “Yeah, sounds good. Text me when you get home, Spidey.” 

Peter nods, and Michelle can’t help but smile. She leans in slowly, and presses a kiss to his cheek before pulling away. Peter just smiles, a little dopey. He turns and sprints back towards the chaos. 

Michelle turns, and stops for a moment to watch Peter run. Into the darkness, she whispers her encouragement. “Go get em, Tiger”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you! Yes, you! Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed!
> 
> I plan to continue writing for this AU, so be sure to keep an eye on the series itself. I'll probably do a few oneshots before diving into the next Multi-chapter work, and will try to make at least a few of them based on your comments!


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